The Hunger Games Without The Hunger Games
by David N. Brown
Summary: Katniss Everdeen and her friends are reaped into a life of servitude to the Capitol. What tasks await Peeta when he is bought out by Johanna Mason? Can Gale survive in the mysterious depths of the city sewer? Can Katniss win their freedom as a gladiatrix? Rated for themes, dialogue and language.
1. Reaped

Katniss Everdeen stood with her sister Prim in the town square. Every year, they had to do this. Every year they were expected to look happy. Every year, the machine on the stage spat out twelve names from among the young people of District 12. Every year, six boys and six girls between twelve and eighteen would go to give a year of their lives in service to the Capitol, and have a chance at earning Citizenship. It had been more than twenty years since one of them came back.

Gale Hawthorne shifted restlessly. He was always restless. That was why he was eighteen and still did not have a trade. He had the strength and skill to make a fine apprentice to a village tradesman, and enough learning and raw wit to join the company of a Town merchant, but he had the patience for neither. He also did not care to accept an arranged marriage, which was a usual condition of such employment. He had staved off the inevitable by signing up for subsidies that supported his family while he received extra schooling, which meant extra entries in the annual lottery. After today, if his name was not drawn, he would have to enter a trade or else go to the mines, and he was sure that there was no choice that would be less than a death only place he truly belonged was in sprawling wilderness under open skies, which was why he preferred to be found where all were forbidden to go: the woods beyond the fence that was purportedly the edge of the inhabited world.

The merchant class of the district looked down on Delly Cartwright's family as merely tradesmen who had gotten lucky. But their truck-driving business had made them among the wealthiest in the district, shipping the same merchants goods from all over Panem. She was sad as she stood at the Reaping, but she smiled and looked on the bright side, as she always did. It was always sad to see people have to go. But they were doing work that had to be done for the good of Panem, and if they didn't come back, it was because the Capitol still needed them. At least she wouldn't have to go, because surely her parents had seen to that, and soon, she would be getting married, and she would be out of the Reaping. She smiled and blew a kiss at her fiance, Peeta.

Peeta Mellark tapped his foot nervously. He gazed about, gazing furtively at the beautiful girl with the braid. He pulled his eyes away to give yet another smile to Delly. As the son of a Town baker, he was accepted as part of the merchant class, but it had been generations since his family had been truly respected. To pay for the expenses of their bakery, his parents had taken loans from the District's banker, and though the business had thrived, the banker's interest took away their money as fast as they could earn it. His parents had pinned their hopes on his marrying into the Cartwright family, whose daughter was genuinely infatuated with him for some reason.

Madge Undersee was genuinely happy. She wore her best dress, because the cameras always did a close-up of the Mayor's family, and she certainly wanted to look her best if she went to the Capitol. The Capitol, what a wonderful place! She just couldn't understand why all the other kids were afraid to have their names called, and nobody ever volunteered. Of course, she didn't, because a Mayor's only child had responsibilities, but she would certainly never be unhappy to go. Why, she was sure the real reason nobody came back was that once they went to the Capitol, they never wanted to come back to crummy old Twelve.

Effie Trinket Abernathy took the stage, smiling as always. Her husband Haymitch Abernathy followed, drunk as always. "Hello, everyone!" Effie said. "For twelve boys and girls, this is going to be a big, big, big day!" Haymitch laughed and threw back his head to take a drink. He went back and back until he fell off the stage.

Effie spoke into a microphone on the console of the machine, giving the standard speech, about how a great cataclysm had destroyed all humanity except in Panem, where the noble Founders made a new nation on rules, order and service. They rebuilt the great city of the Capitol, and thirteen districts to serve, until the Rebellion... Gale stopped himself from jeering openly. Finally, Effie got down to business pushing the buttons. "The first male tribute is..." The machine spat out a piece of paper, and Effie held it up. "_Peeta Mellark!_" A baker's boy came to the stage. Gale saw him around, usually hanging around Katniss, and he would probably would have done something about it if the boy wasn't so pathetically good-natured. Delly Cartwright shrieked and ran after him in tears.

"Miss, what's your name?" Effie asked gently. Delly's answer is completely incomprehensible, but Peeta answered for her. "Do you volunteer, sweetie?" Delly managed to stammer that she did. "Our volunteer Tribute is _Delly Cartwright!_" It took five minutes for the machine to process the result, during which Effie jabbered and laughed. The machine finally dinged to signal it was ready, and the Reaping went on, with four names that were at best vaguely familiar, then, "_Logan Hawthorne!_"

Gale met Katniss's eyes across the crowd, and shrugged. It was enough to make it clear that the boy who ascended the stage was a stranger to him, though for all he knew they could be related. His extended family was vast and tangled, and there were plenty of men with a reputation for spreading the bloodline even further thatn records would show. "Madge Undersee!"

Madge curtsied and walked to the stage, smiling. Her mother gave one scream, and the Mayor threw his arms around her long enough for the Town's most prominent doctor to stick her with a needle that made her quiet. Gale was less indifferent. He knew Madge, and he was pretty sure she liked him. It took him a moment to register what Effie said next: "_Gale Hawthorne! _My, two in a row!" Gale stood, frozen, until a pair of Peacekeepers started closing in. Then he walked on stage.

A Seam girl was next, then a tradesman's boy, and then... "Primrose Everdeen! Or do we have a volunteer?" Already, Katniss was running to the stage. Effie beamed. "Two volunteer tributes in one year, a first for the District! Now, all our elected Tributes have the rest of the day to visit your families and make any arrangements to arrange your affairs during your visit to Capitol."

"Yeah, you should do that," Haymitch said. "It's gonna be a long... long... _long_ trip."


	2. Capitol Bound

The twelve Tributes were given the remainder of the day to say fairwell to their families and their District, with the Peacekeepers watching in case they tried anything clandestine. Delly insisted on performing a marriage ritual with Peeta, though it was doubtful the Capitol would accept it as binding. Gale and Katniss got their families together for one big dinner, doing their best to sort out what to do. Madge held her mother, telling her how beautiful the Capitol would be, and she would probably marry a nice Capitol boy who would pay to release her early, and she would be back soon.

Each Tribute was issued a uniform to be worn on boarding the train, consisting of a semidisposable white unisex tunic, a pair of plain but decently built shoes, shorts and undershirt, and little fabric pack to be worn around his waist. Each Tribute was allowed one token from home to stow in the pouch. The Tributes and the mentor pair filled a train car. Gale, Peeta, Katniss and Delly took the foremost staterooms. Delly opened a door to the adjoining car, and stifled a shriek. Katniss hurried after her, expecting trouble. What she saw was a huge young man with dark skin towering over Delly's short, slightly pudgy frame. "Hi, I'm Thresh, D11," he said, smiling broadly as he shook Delly's limp hand. "Nice to meet you." Delly squeaked something and retreated.

"I'm Katniss Everdeen, District Twelve," Katniss said, shaking Thresh's hand. "I'm really sorry about that. It's just, in Twelve, most of us look alike, and nobody looks like you."

"Tha's funny," Thresh said, "people always say _we_ look alike." Katniss herself was a little nervous in Thresh's presence herself, until she saw Thresh's companion, an ebony elf of a girl Thresh introduced as Rue. The girl was quiet at first, but she was soon cajoled into smiling, and then the dam broke and there was no keeping up with her. Gale joined them, chuckling, and eventually Delly and Peeta came out. She kept snug under Peeta's arm, but tried speaking to Rue, who was tolerant enough to answer.

"Nope, we never met before," Rue said regarding Thresh. "We're a big District. Lot of people, all over. Do you know each other?"

"Gale and I are friends," Katniss answered. "Peeta and Delly go to our school." Peeta nodded. Rue looked at him, then at Katniss, and smiled.

"What do you think you'll do in Capitol?" Rue asked.

"Oh, I think I'll be asked to be a model," Delly said. "Everyone back home says I'm the prettiest girl in town..."

"Wonderful, you've made new friends!" Effie said. "But it's time for the big meeting!" Thresh and Rue cleared out, and Haymitch and the other Tributes came out.

"Lis'n up," Haymitch said, looking them over with narrowed, bloodshot eyes. "I know what you're all thinkin'. Maybe- maybe- being Reaped is the best thing tha's ever gonna happen to you. Maybe you'll make enough to get off in one year 'stead of ten. Maybe you'll catch a Captolite's eye, and go home. An' even if you never get home, you'll be livin' the Capitol life."

He curled his lips. "Here's your first reality check: To the Capitolites, you're talking animals. They really and truly see you like a different species." Effie was pointedly silent. "Take Delly here. Back home, people tell you you're pretty, just because you got some extra meat on your bones. But the Capitolites like thin. To them, you are a cow." She gave a startled, outraged screech. "Now, that doesn't mean the Capitolites won't show an interest in you. There's always going to be someone who will try anything, including the livestock. But just remember, how often is a cow invited to stay in the house? No matter what they do, the best thing is always to steer clear, if you can."

Haymitch held up two coins, a familiar large, ostensibly copper coin called an ace that was pay for ninety minutes of back-breaking labor in the mines, and another, small coin made of silver. "Reality check two," he continued, "currency exchange. This, of course, is an ace, and eight of them make a day's pay back home. This one's a diem, and it's a day's pay in Capitol. Officially, sixteen aces are worth one diem. For the first month in advance and every week after that up to the full year, District Twelve gets paid three silver diems for every six days you work, according the official exchange rate. But here's the thing: The real exhange rate is more like two hundred brassies for just_ one _piece of silver, and when it's business, nobody's kidding anybody. If you actually complete the year, and the odds of that are long enough, the Capitol is going to hold you to working off the difference.

"Reality check three... script." He held up a fistful of paper slips of various colors. "These are Food Credits. The Capitol will give you these to exchange for food and anything else you think you need or want at their special `Tribute stores'. The only other place these will be good for anything is an outhouse that's out of tissue. You get five creds for every day's work. The kicker is, once the first year is done, the Capitol starts counting the credits as four aces off your pay."

He discretely reached into his jacket and pulled out a set of photos. "Reality check four... living conditions," he said. The first photo showed dozens of shappy, squat brick buildings enclosed by a massive, wire-topped concrete wall. "This is the 13th Precinct, otherwise known as the Ghetto. Outside of your work, it is as much of the Capitol as most of you are ever going to see. At any given time, it holds 100,000 non-Citizen workers, including Capitolite convicts. One building is supposed to hold five hundred workers. Actual occupancy can be as high as two thousand. If you leave your block after six, your building after ten, or attempt to leave the ghetto at any time except as part of a work detail, _you will be shot_."

"Reality check five... health care," Haymitch said. "The Capitol says they provide Tributes paid leave and free medical care. It's not untrue, but all it really means is that they keep sending the silver home and they don't add the cost of your care to your debt... again, for the first year. The fine print is that every day `off' is two weeks added to your time. Also, health care doesn't cover `extraordinary emergencies'... like having a kid." He narrowed his eyes at Delly and Peeta.

"Tha's right, sweetheart. Little ones are a liability in the Capitol, even to the Capitolites. But there's ways to deal with it. The Tribute shops offer pills for ladies that will take care of it if you take 'em regularly. They cost a fifth of your pay, but take them anyway, even if you don't have plans. You never know when you might run into someone with plans of his own. If the deed's already done, you can have a procedure to take care of it. The Capitol will do it free if you let them do an extra something to make sure it never happens again. _Ever._ If the father is from a wealthy family, or could be, his house will almost always pay for a quiet arrangement. Or, you put your child up for adoption, the adopting family will pay at least enough to get you out of having the cost of delivery added to your debt."

Delly was shivering. Peeta spoke: "What if we want to have a family?"

Haymitch took a long drink from his flask. "Trust me," he said, wiping his mouth, "you don't." At that, Effie quickly and quietly excused herself, and everyone pretended not to here the soft, dainty sobs from the Mentors' stateroom.

**An after note: For this story, I have modeled the assumed society after Roman/ New Testament society, which I consider to be a reasonable extension of themes and subtexts in the book. The economic conditions described here are actually less extreme than those which really occurred at certain periods. Another thing I will mention is that my long-standing judgment call is that an "M" by this site's standards is equivalent to the edgy side of PG-13, and I rate and post accordingly.**


	3. City Lights

Katniss gazed out the window from her upper bunk. From beyond the mountains in the near distance shown the lights of the Capitol. Several especially tall buildings could be seen over the very mountains, including a cluster of seven illuminated spires that could only be the Citadel, the huge complex where Panem's Senate convened. She took no notice of the sound of the door opening and closing, but she felt a moment of alarm at a scent that almost . "Gale," she said, sounding a little more reassured than she felt. "Did Delly ask to trade places?"

"Yeah," Gale said. "You saw how she was. Peeta thought he could calm her down. I told him to be careful, and he said nothing was going to happen. I just checked, and they're both sound asleep."

"That's going to be good enough for her," Katniss said. "She talks to me sometimes, and once she told me how, when she was little, she slept in the same bed with her big brother. I didn't think any of the merchant families did that." Gale chuckled an affirmative. Seperate beds was more luxury than most any Seam family could afford. Notwithstanding the salacious gossip of their neighbors, sleeping really was about all that went on in their bedrooms. Any other business was, as a matter of privacy and simple practicality, conducted elsewhere.

Gale settled into the lower bunk, and Katniss went back to looking out the window. The mountains were looming larger, and there was some kind of light ahead. Suddenly, the sound of the train changed, and lights started streaking by like fireflies in a line. "We're in the Great Tunnel," she said. The longest of the tunnels to the Capitol was the stuff of legend. It was said that its construction had it had taken half a million men fifty years to build it, at the cost of fifty thousand lives. Tales told that a fifth of the dead had come from District 12.

"There's another train passing us," Gale said as the sound changed again. Katniss listened, and nodded. After a moment, she looked over the edge of the bunk. Gale appeared to be sound asleep.

"Are you awake?" she asked.

"No," Gale answered with a hint of a smile. After a minute or so, he said without opening his eyes, "You can join me if you want."

"No," Katniss said. She was feeling ready to go to sleep, and if it came to that, she wasn't sure she trusted Gale to treat her like a gallant big brother. She closed her eyes, and it seemed that the next moment, she was in the Capitol.

"Listen up," Haymitch said. "There's one more thing I haven't told you about... Sponsors. They'll be waiting at the platform, looking for a Tribute worth their while. I already told you the deal when it comes to working for the Capitol. The Capitol will only pay you in watered-down coppers and worthless script, and there's no way out that way. But there's people in the Capitol who will pay gold for you to work for them. What it really comes down to is, they buy you. But they might give you a chance to work off your debt, and even if you don't, they can make your life a lot easier. You just have to decide whether it's worth what they ask, and belive me, they will ask for a lot."

The arrival of the Tributes was a cause for festivities in the Capitol. The train stopped in the northernmost Second Precinct of the City, in a park that had clearly lost some of its grandeur. The elite of the city gathered in a park where the Tributes marched on foot from the platform to their twelve open-topped transports. Their cheers appeared more than sincere, but there were also calculating looks as they studied the column, deciding which Tributes might be worth a sponsorship.

The Tributes were all dressed in white tunics, and volunteers from the wealthy Districts wore additional finery, like the purple sashes and golden crowns worn by the beautiful young woman and huge man from Two who led the parade. The escorts followed in the rear, with those from the most prestigious districts in the very back. Haymitch was directly behind Katniss, lurching along with the firm support of Effie's arm.

Boarding had to wait for a ceremony in the park, presided over by the President. He called two dozen tributes to the stage by name, starting with those from Two, One and Four. Katniss paid enough attention to find out that the beautiful pair in the lead were Clove and Cato. Katniss tuned out after that, until she was jarred by the sound of her own name. It still took a moment to register that she had been called to the stage, and it was only then that she realized Peeta was on stage. She made her way awkwardly up.

There was more talking, as a Capitol broadcast personality named Flickerman talked to the Tributes. Katniss tuned out again, until he got to Peeta. Flickerman asked about Delly, and Peeta gave her the kind of effusive praise an ancient lord might give a favorite hound or horse. Then it was her turn.

"There have been very few volunteers from District Twelve," Caesar said. "Two in one year is entirely unprecedented. We know why Dellia Cartwright volunteered. Tell us about your reasons."

"I- I volunteered so Prim- my sister- didn't have to come," Katniss stammered, and immediately felt mounting horror. She lamely added, "She's very young, and she and Mother are really close."

"Well, I'm sure you all love each other very much," Caesar said. Katniss's face reddened. She wished she could just die and get it over with.

It was more torture by tedium as the parade of Tribute transports made its way around the city, led by a royal purple transport bearing Snow, his chief minister and a dozen Peacekeepers in crimson dress uniforms, plus one more who steered the boat-like vehicle from the rear. Two dozen more Peacekeepers escorted the parade on scooters, two to a Tribute transport. Each transport was freshly painted, polished and decorated according to the a District motif. Twelve's, as always, was painted black, and someone had thought it was amusing to have jets of flame belching out the back. Katniss sat with Gale in the third row of the boat-shaped transport, behind Peeta and Delly. She was reassured by the fact that the Capitol broadcasts never showed anything but a few brief distance shots of Twelve's transports. She was newly mortified when she saw a hovercraft clearly pacing their transport.

The parade's circuit ended, and the transports turned south. There would be no more cameras. The transports and their escorts moved into a more compact formation, in which Twelve's ended up alongside the pure white vessel of Two. Katniss looked over and saw a young man sobbing openly. She looked up and down the line, seeing more tears and no hint of a smile. She tensed when Cato looked over his shoulder and directly into her eyes. His face was solemn yet calm, with just a hint of tempered confidence. He gave a slight nod, and looked ahead.

The parade had been enough to give Katniss some sense of the city's layout, enough to know that they were still a good ways away from the gray walls of the Ghetto when the convoy turned yet again. Up ahead was a great tower she already knew well: the Tribute Academy.


	4. Showdown

**Here's a somewhat anomalous scene that I thought of before I came up with the idea for the story as such. Epic or slapstick, who needs to decide?**

Gale looked ready to jump out of his skin, or possibly make a dive for the window, as he took his seat in the Judges' chamber. He had been through a week of incrutable tests, and then had to wait days for Twelve to come up, and now it came down to this. The chamber was truly cavernous, with a ceiling so high it receded into gloom, and a wide floor space with obects ranging from packing crates to computer consoles to athletic equipment set about as props to demonstrate vocational skills.

"Mr. Gale Hawthorne," the Chief Judge said, "I am Seneca Crane. I must tell you frankly, you present a rather unusual case. In many ways, you are the most promising of all the Tributes, yet the very record of your promise is equally one of frustration. You have earned high marks in school, yet your instructors report you are frequently absent and often insubbordinate. You many offers of apprenticeships in a wide range of occupations, yet,you have made no visible move to enter an occupation. Worst of all, it seems to be a matter of general knowledge that you have been making extended forays into restricted areas of your District."

Gale showed no reaction. He fully expected that he was about to receive a death sentence. "Gale... I hope you don't mind if we go by first names... it is not our place to punish or even to question you for any activities you may have engaged in. Our only concern is how you might give profitable service to Panem. If you will only work with us, I am sure together we can make your time of Tribute service just as profitable for yourself. Now, Gale, I can see you have studied many subjects. Which do you personally find most interesting?"

"Well, Mr. Crane, I'd have to say... rope," Gale said. He made a graphic pantomime of a noose around his own neck.

"Plutarch," Crane muttered to the judge beside him, "tell the kitchen to wait on delivering dinner."

"Well," Delly said, "Daddy says I'm great at math. We have to work with lots of numbers, and he lets me help..."

"What about domestic service?" Judge Plutarch asked.

"Oh, I just let the servants take care of that."

As sunset became evening and evening approached morning, the Tributes of Twelve were still waiting. Gale paced, muttering to himself, while Delly sobbed in Peeta's arms. "I p-p-practiced so ha-ha-hard to sh-show them I'm sm-smart," she wailed in one of her more intelligible blubberings, "and all they w-wanted to know is if-f I can use a st-stupid mop! I kn-know... they thought- I couldn't! They're right!"

Gale halted in his tracks and snarled, "Shut up, pig!"

Peeta pushed Delly aside and jumped to his feet. "That's my girl you're talking to!" he shouted. The two men moved face to face. They were about the same size, with the hunter standing a little toler and the baker's boy a little broader in the chest, and both skilled as well as fit.

"Reallly? I thought she was your wife!" Gale said. "You do anything to make that official?"

"We're waiting," Peeta said. "We care about each other."

"Peeta, stop," Delly pleaded.

"You care about each other so much," Gale said, almost hissing, "why do you spend so much time hanging around Katniss?"

"What do you care?" Peeta hissed back.

Katniss entered, finally, just in time to see both men hit the floor. Peeta had Gale in a chokehold, and Gale was biting into his arm. Delly just stood by and made high-pitched whimpering sounds. "What's going on?" Katniss said. "Stop it." Gale broke free and and they both rose to their knees, grappling for each other's throats. Katniss snarled herself and lunged into the fray. After a second of scuffling, she found that she had managed to get Peeta in a headlock.

That was when Delly came at her.

Plutarch Heavensbee and Seneca Crane emerged to find Gale out cold, and Peeta trying with minimal success to pull Katniss off of Delly. The Chief Judge glared sternly at a knot of Peacekeepers across the room. "Why aren't you doing anything about this?" he said.

One Peacekeeper pointed at two others. "When we got here, Rem and Jonny already had money on it," he said.

One of the pair snapped back, "You're the one who put an octan on the brunette!"


	5. Assignment Day

The next day, Katniss, Delly, Peeta and Gale sat together, bruised, battered and silent, among the gathered Tributes. One by one, the Tributes were called to receive their assignments. "Thresh Underwood, 5th Precinct, arts and athletics, Pankratiatics... Rue Anderson, 5th Precinct, arts and athletics, gymnastics... Gale Hawthorne, 7th Precinct municipal maintenance, sanitation... Margaret Undersee, 1st Precinct, civil administration... Logan Hawthorne, 7th Precinct, municipal maintenance, sanitation... Peeta Mellark, 5th Precinct, arts and athletics, pankratiatics... Dellia Cartwright, 1st Precinct domestic services... Katniss Everdeen, 5th Precinct, arts and athletics, other."

As Katniss descended the stage, the tributes were already getting up and starting to mingle. She quickly became aware of many eyes following her. She found her friends, including Rue and Thresh, in one huddle. Logan and Gale were laughing, albeit nervously. "One job, two Hawthornes," Logan said with a smile. "Odds are at least one of us will do okay..." At Katniss's approach, everyone fell silent, and Logan walked away.

"So," Katniss said to Delly, "sounds like you got a good job. I mean, 2nd Precinct, that's one of the nice parts of Capitol, right? And Peeta, pankratics is what they call wrestling, right? You've got nothing to worry about, I mean, you were wrestling champion back at school."

Thresh shook his head. "Pankratiatics isn't the same as wrestling," he said. "It's more like a cross between wrestling and boxing. If you can do either, you can learn pankratiatics, but it's not easy. I studied it back home, and I was just telling Mellark, I'll help him practice as much as I can." He stopped talking, and gave Katniss a thoughtful gaze that made it clear he was more concerned about her.

"What?" she said. "What do people keep looking at me for? Do you think I can't take care of myself? And what's to worry about? I don't even know what I'm doing yet. Other, that could be anything!"

Rue spoke up: "Katniss... Sometimes, they use words like that because they don't want to say what it is. `Other athletics' just means one thing... They want you to be a gladiator."

Katniss laughed. "But gladiators were banned from the Arenas almost ten years ago," she said, "and women gladiators haven't been allowed for decades."

"Gladiatrices," Gale said with a sad smile, "and the Capitol banned them for the same reason governments usually ban things: They were popular."

"Oh," Katniss said. She pondered a moment, and decided that what she really wanted was to talk about something else. "So, Gale, what will you be doing?"

"Something in the sewers."

The next day begun, as usual, with Effie knocking on doors announcing "a big, big, big day!" Katniss had shared a room with Gale again, allowing Peeta to bunk with Delly. She watched them emerge, Peeta clinging to Delly almost as if he was stuck to her, and she sensed from their very closeness that their nominal marriage was still awaiting consummation. She glanced at Gale, and he smiled at her in a way that made her a little uncomfortable.

As soon as breakfast was over, Haymitch took Katniss and Peeta aside. "I don't know what you did," he said, but you've put us in an unusual situation. We don't get many Tributes selected for the arena, and I think this is the first time we've had two in one year."

"You were athletics," Peeta said, "weren't you?"

"Yeah... I was a racer," Haymitch said. "Back then, the gladiators were going downhill- believe it or not, people complained there wasn't enough death and dismemberment- and the pankratiasts was just starting to move in to take their place. In the meantime, every season or so was seeing a craze for some new game, just to fill the vacuum. When my turn came, it was cart racing. Not chariots, mind you, but motorized vehicles. You could call them cars, but I wouldn't. Mine was called Go-Devil, and it was just a big engine with little wheels and me along for the ride. A Tribute from Three named Beetee put it together, and I think most of the work was building a frame sturdy enough that the engine didn't shake the wheels right off. That happened a lot. I got in right at the peak, I got a few big sponsors and won a few big matches, and then I took the money and ran."

"What about Effie?" Peeta asked. Both he and Katniss were starting to smile.

"It was complicated."

"So," Katniss said, "what's this about gladiatrixes? When did it start, and how did they get in the rules about gladiators?"

"I s'pose it started with a demonstration event five seasons ago," Haymitch said. "It's the demonstration events, you know, where new things come into the Games. No official prizes, but a lot fewer rules, and there's still sponsor dollars, not to mention private betting. So, eight women fought as gladiatrices, and the last one standing faced off against a champion gladiator. They were all terrible, which made things a lot bloodier. But this bitty girl out of Seven was good and lucky enough to sweep the elimination round, and stand off against the champion until a judge called off the fight. Her name's Johanna, and there's a good chance you'll run into her... If you do, I suggest running the other way. After that, there was interest in woman fighters, and two seasons ago, the demonstration event was a fight between two armed and armored gladiatrices. They were both terrible, but it was enough to get a craze going full force.

"There's still no sign that the Capitol will allow gladiatices in sanctioned matches. But there's definitely going to be a something big in the Annual event, and in the meantime everyone's trying to round up gladiatrices. Apparently, somebody thinks you have what it takes."

"But I don't know anything about fighting," Katniss protested. "I can use a bow, and I hunt, but that's it. I know I'd be useless in a stand-up fight."

"Okay then, that means one of two things," Haymitch said. "Somebody thinks you're wrong... or somebody thinks you're right."

"She's wrong," Peeta said. "Not only that, she knows she's wrong."


	6. Down the Drain

**I have a ridiculous lead on this story. This chapter opens the plot arc I am having the most fun with.**

Officially, Tributes were to receive at least two weeks of training before they went to work. Gale was on the job in three days. At the start of the day, he went with four others to a shrine tucked away in an alcove at the Academy. It was one of dozens distributed unobtrusively throughout the Academy. Each one had a plaque or bas relief, sometimes a small statue, and a table where offerings could be placed. This shrine had a small but beautifully crafted silver statuette of a beautiful young woman wreathed in flowers, holding a pomegranate.

The party consisted of Gale, Logan, an insufferable District 1 boy named Marvel, a quiet girl from Five named Vixen, and Asher, a District 12 Tribute who had been reaped six years before. Asher read the legend: "Proserpine, also called Persephone. Daughter of Ceres, wife of Pluto, embodiment of the Power of Regeneration."

Marvel laughed. "Don't you mean goddess of shit?"

Gale came very close to decking him, but Logan and the redhead discretely took hold of his arms. Religion had an even smaller role in District 12 than in most parts of Panem, but there was not a man in the Seam who did not at least say a quiet prayer to Persephone. Gale was thankful when Logan spoke: "She's a goddess of life! Every spring, she brings flowers, and fruit, and crops, and..."

Marvel looked ready to sass back, but Asher cut in. "Dontcha know, there are no goddesses?" he said with a wry smile. "No God, either, in the conventional anthro-po-morphic sense. The Capitol says so. But the Capitol decided, the old gods are useful. They are not only a part of Panem's cultural and literary heritage, they represent the real Powers ordained by the Unknown to govern the world. Every human occupation falls under one of the Powers, and ours is regeneration. Proserpine is our Patron, because we create productivity from waste, new life from decay."

"Like using manure to fertilize a flower garden," Logan said.

"Like turning piss into drinking water," the redhead said. It was the first time she had spoken, and Gale took his first good look at her. The main thing he noticed was that her nose was big enough to augment a certain resemblance to a fox.

"Exactly! Now take the pledge, and let's get to work."

Logan was called away for some unspecified duty. The rest joined a work detail of eight. They loaded onto a truck that followed a slug-like tanker down the subterranean passages of the Transfer. The Transfer could serve as an overflow storm drain, but its main purpose was to provide safe and convenient passage for Capitol maintenance worker. It also clearly served to minimize the amount of time said workers could spend in proximity to the Capitol public. The size of the party was twice the number that the work actually required, ostensibly because it was a training day, but Gale suspected it was because losses were a possibility.

Asher had been friendly to Gale, and still seemed friendly now. He hoped that was a point in his favor. "Now this," Asher said with a smile, "should be familiar." He held out a helmet with a headlamp. "Put this on first." He showed how to strap on the gas mask.

Gale took it as a further good sign that he was entrusted with a hand-held computer that served as a map. He held it with a certain amount of wonder and terror. The closest thing he had seen to it was one of Madge's toys, a kind of mechanical drawing tablet, and that had seemed a magical marvel. He could never have imagined this. It was almost exactly the size and shape of Madge's toy, but much heavier. The slightly luminous screen showed a multicolored map of the sewers, with fainter lines indicating lower levels. The knobs scrolled up and down, and pressing down on the left or right zoomed in or out. Two buttons on either side changed the picture to show a higher or lower level.

"It's a lousy pieca junk," Asher said. "Hundred years old if it's a day. But it'll probably still be workin' just as lousy when all of us are long gone." He held up his tablet, and pushed down the left knob to zoom in. An elongate blob resolved into twelve numbered dots. "This shows me the location of all of you. You may've heard the Capitol injects transmitters in Tributes to track you. They probably could, and maybe they've tried, but the simple fact is, it would never work down here. What we do have is ultrasonic transponders. Each of your helmets has a device that generates sound, too high to hear. The tabby detects those signals, and plots your location on the map. It will do the same with members of another work crew, and flag any other moving object."

"Moving object?" Gale said. "Like what?"

"Most of the flags are cave-ins or animal activity," Asher said. "It usually tunes out little guys- bugs and rats- but there's bigger stuff down here, and even the rats get big enough to set off a flag once in a while. A nice thing about the transponders is that animals can hear it better than we can, and usually they clear out ahead of us. The important thing to remember is, _if it's not in your way, it's none of your business. _Don't follow anything, just do your job. Now, let's get to work. Hawthorne... you first."

Asher and the student Tributes walked down a passage known as the inspection tunnel, carrying a hose that played out from the tank truck. The tunnel was supposed to be water-tight, to allow workers to move about even if the sewer flooded, yet Gale noticed more than a few puddles. They walked for 30 yards, passing two raised hatches before they reached the hatch they were looking for. The next level down was the collection level, a storm sewer which collected rainwater from above. It was tall enough for a man to walk upright comfortably, but Gale was at the upper limit. He descended into knee-deep water that was clouded a thin yellow-orange with swirls of opaque white. He was sure he could smell odor through the mask. "Asher," he said, "what do we do if we have to puke?"

"Pull up your mask and pinch your nose," Asher said as he followed. "Now, what we have here is backflush from a grinder. It usually means a blockage below, but it could be a jam in the grinder itself. Not our problem, we're just the clean-up crew. Let her rip, and watch your ankles!"

Gale and Marvel maneuvered the hose into position, whileVixen stood by with a long-handled net. Asher watched from halfway up the ladder. The hose stiffened as the pump above them fired up. Gale dug his heels in against a surge of current. Slowly, the water level began to drop. "Watch that floater!" Asher said. Vixen scooped up something unspeakable floating toward the hose. Gale fidgeted and shifted his grip. Maybe the smell was in his head, but something was making his eyes sting.

Suddenly, the hose jerked from Gale's grasp, and then from the hands of the other man. For a moment, the hose raised itself like an elephant's trunk. Then it dropped as the pump cut out, flopping about as it sprayed gallons upon gallons of effluent.

Gale wiped off his mask as best he could, which mostly just made the smears on his eye pieces worse. He finally looked up at Asher, almost plaintively. Through the thin, smudgy film, he saw the foreman shrug. "As we say in the business," Asher said, "shit happens."

**An after note: This chapter and the next started out as one. I split things up after adding some additional character interaction and especially the religious/ mythological elements. I have always found the absence of references to religion in the books to be unconvincing. I decided it would make the most sense if there were some form of religion that was at least tolerated, but there was simply no organized clergy (which would obviously be a threat to authoritarian government) and possibly something other than a monotheistic theology. What I came up with is based primarily on early Roman religion (reflected in the references to "Powers"), and also influenced by the examples of Imperial Japanese and Cold War Balkans societies. Another change was introducing Vixen (aka "Foxface"), who has a major role in later chapters.**


	7. First Blood

The spill proved to be the only mishap of the day, and they ended up finishing early. Gale and the other Tributes were dropped off at the Academy, while the worker transport went south toward the Ghetto. Gale was called to a meeting with Haymitch and the other Tributes of Twelve. "What's wrong?" Gale asked at the sight of Haymitch's stern face. He looked around at the others and added, "Where's Logan?"

"Logan Hawthorne" Haymitch said with a cold, oddly flat voice, "died today."

Delly threw her arms around Peeta and started to sob. Katniss directed a hollow stare at nothing in particular. Gale looked merely incredulous. "But... it was the first day of work," he said. "I have the same job..."

"Yeah, you can think about that on your own," Haymitch said. "Here's the important thing. It turns out the Capitol changed the rules a bit. Instead of requiring each Tribute to work twelve months, they're requiring twelve months' work per tribute. That means the eleven of you that are left all have to do an extra month for every one Logan can't work, which as you know comes out as an extra year. Then there's one more thing... nobody goes home till you all work off your debts."

The remaining Tributes burst out in varying combinations of anguish and outrage. Gale just walked away, over to the shrine of Proserpine. Someone was already there. "Hey," Vixen said in her boyish voice. "I thought you might come here." She did not kneel, but she was looking respectfully at the shrine from where she sat cross-legged. After a moment's thought, Gale followed her example.

"Asher talked to me," Vixen said. "He's back out... looking. He gave me a key to Logan's locker, and asked me put anything I found here. This was all I found. I thought you should do it."

She handed Gale a small brass medallion, bent at the middle. On one side was a cross or four-pointed star surrounded by pomegranates. The other bore Logan's name."I didn't know him," Gale said. "I never really thought about trying to know him. But he seemed like a good guy." He set the medallion on the table, and took out one of his own.

"In the Seam- that's the part of Twelve where the miners live- everyone has one of these," he told Vixen. "It's supposed to give us Persephone's protection, and let her know us by name. When we're buried, it's tradition to bury us with a medallion broken in half, so wherever we go, we carry a sort of ghost of the medallion with us. In the mines, we carry a medallion that's bent. It's kind of a joke, like we're already half-dead, but most people really believe it. It's practical, too... for identifying bodies."

"I guess Logan was willing to take his chances," Vixen said.

Gale shook his head. "No... there's something else," he said. "Somewhere along the way, somebody decided, if they couldn't recover a body, a medallion could be a substitute... for the funeral. That's why Logan left this behind, so there would be something left to perform the rites for. They do that, and it's not rare. It's what they did for my father."

"I'm sorry," Vixen said.

"Don't be," Gale said. "He was a mean, drunken bastard. The only thing I'm sorry for is that a whole crew went down with him."

"Yeah, my family's not winning any prizes either," Vixen said. "I guess I can thank them for the fact that I learned to take care of myself. No more stories about home... I know, do you know any stories about Persephone?"

"Try finding somebody from Twelve who doesn't," Gale said. "But the most important story of all is how she was married... The way we tell it, Persephone is the only child of Mother Earth, and when she was born, the whole world would bloom all year because of Earth's love for her. Brother Death wanted to destroy her, but when he saw her, he loved her more than anyone, but selfishly. So, one day, Death rode out on his chariot and kidnapped her. When Persephone was gone, Mother Earth was so miserable that every plant withered and died. She said nothing would grow again, until she had her daughter back.

"But nobody knew where Persephone was, except Father Sky. He went down to Death's kingdom, and ordered him to release Persephone, before all the people on earth died from hunger. It turned out, Death had tried to treat her well, but she wouldn't talk to him, eat with him or accept any of his gifts. The only thing she had taken out of all his kingdom was a few kernels from a pomegranate that one of Death's servants had shared with her. But Death knew as soon as she ate the kernels, and he said that because she had taken just one thing from him, he owned her. He threatened that if Father Sky made him release her, he would send out a plague that would destroy mortal men as surely as Earth's famine, and unleash terrible giants and monsters imprisoned in the Underworld that even Father Sky feared.

"Then Persephone herself offered a compromise. She would accept marriage to Brother Death, on one condition: For half of every year, she would return to her Mother. The agreement was made, and ever since, the plants of the Earth have bloomed every Spring at Persephone's return, and withered every Fall when she goes back to the underworld. Then, the stories say that even in the Underworld, she does what she can for the living. Like, they say she makes dead, buried plants into coal, and she will plead with her husband to let us miners in his domain take what we need and go home safe... or at least let our families have our bodies to bury. That's why we worship her. She's the goddess who conquered the grave, and she's the one who will speak for us when we face whatever's on the other side."

"I think that's a beautiful story," Vixen said. "I would love to believe it." She got up to go.

"Foxy," Gale said, speaking the name that had been working its way up in his mind. At his signal, she leaned down close enough to whisper: "Remember... _they don't own you unless you let them._"

"I get it," Vixen murmured back. "You remember, you are Gale Hawthorne. You aren't him, and I think you're going to leave more than a medallion on a table."


	8. Sponsorships

Sponsors were not allowed to bid for Tributes until the end of the first week of training, but their presence had been evident throughout the preceding days, and the Tributes had tried very hard to draw their attention. The exception was Katniss Everdeen, who had tried to stay out of sight whenever one of the sponsors' well-dressed operatives was around. Yet, she was the one that they made a beeline for.

Katniss surveyed a score of sponsors gathered to watch her demonstration. A majority were Capitolites, but a goodly number were former Tributes who had earned their Citizenships in the Games. Haymitch had already briefed his charges on the ones to watch. There were Gloss and Cashmere, brother and sister out of District One. There was Enobaria, returning Katniss's gaze with a grin that revealed gold fangs. She came from District Two, and had built her reputation as an underground pankratiast who routinely broke the only real rule, which was not to bite. There was an older woman with dusky skin named Seeder, out of Eleven, who alone seemed to look kindly back at her. Then there was the one who truly made Katniss's skin crawl, the petite young woman named Johanna Mason, shamelessly outfitted in a virtually topless leather garment.

Peeta and Thresh hauled out the heavy target dummies, putting on something of a show themselves in their shirtless pankratiast outfits. Katniss herself felt a certain unaccustomed something as she watched Peeta lifted one weighted dummy right over his head. Whatever it was cooled when she caught Johanna drawing a pair of binoculars and tracked her predatory gaze back to Peeta's backside.

Katniss drew a Capitol bow she had found disused in a corner of an Academy storeroom. More than half her time at the Academy had gone into making sure the menacing black metal creation worked at all. Then she had calibrated it to her strengths and technique, and practiced until she matched and then surpassed her skill on her own handcrafted bow at home. Her first bolt went through the pupil of a painted eye of a dummy fifty yards away. The next two went in the heart. Then she went down the line, making one impossible shot after another at ever greater ranges.

Johanna was first to speak. "Six quin," she said, laying down a half-dozen little gold coins that each represented a week of Capitol wages, "... for them." She pointed to Peeta and Thresh. Thresh swore at Peeta, but he was only staring back at Johanna.

"Two lunae for Katniss Everdeen," Gloss said, laying down two larger gold coins that each made a month's wages.

"Three," said Enobaria.

"Four," Cashmere said, doubling her brother's bid out of her own pocket.

"One hextus." Seeder laid down a platinum disk that represented half a year of Capitol wages. Enobaria and the siblings simply took their gold and heading for the demonstration being put on by Cato and Clove, District 2's athletic tributes.

Katniss made no attempt to feign pleasure as she went to meet her sponsor. Seeder followed her sullen gaze to Johanna, who was delivering a kiss on the lips to each of her new acquisitions. "Hey," Seeder said, drawing Katniss's attention, "you don't have to like this. I can't say I do either. But we can work together, and maybe things will turn out right."

"No, they won't," Katniss said, "but it's not your fault." She took Seeder's hand, and shook.

* * *

Few sponsors even showed up for bidding on the maintenance workers. Gale took some grim amusement watching Marvel, the District One boy who had accompanied him on his first day, run after Cashmere and Gloss. Two peacekeepers promptly intercepted him, and the pair just kept walking. The beautiful District Two girl who accompanied them took one haughty look back over her shoulder.

"Hm." Gale belatedly noticed a little man who looked to be pushing forty. "My name is Beetee, from Three. Hm. Do you know anything about electronics?"

For a moment, Gale felt panic. "I studied it in school," he answered honestly. With that, he mustered the composure to answer a few questions, and it slowly dawned on him that this odd person was impressed.

"Hm," Beetee said. "I am prepared to pay twelve diem for you to receive special instruction. Hm. You will be continuing your current duties in the meantime, but your promotion prospects will improve considerably. If your performance is good, hm, I will recommend you for a private contract with my company. Hm."

"Thanks," Gale said. "It would be nice to get out of the sewer."

"Hm." Beetee smiled. "We have a jest, that it's more like one sewer to another. But at least it smells nicer."

* * *

Delly was placed in a large pool of Tributes under consideration as housekeepers to Senators and other lhigh officials of the Capitol government, but it was well-known that the men of power were far more interested in a different kind of domestic activity. The other Tributes had spent their time in Capitol starving themselves and improvising provocative outfits. Delly, on the other hand, had managed to gain almost ten pounds since their arrival, and she had responded by searching out a plain, nearly shapeless sack of a dress that would at least leave some doubt where she was thickest. While the other Tributes strutted their stuff, Delly seated herself in a corner, eating yet another pastry.

She almost screamed when a couple approached her. One was a man, clearly well over sixty yet still reasonably attractive in a dapper-gentleman kind of way. He walked arm and arm with a woman certainly not less than twenty years his junior, who between her emerald-green skin and astonishingly skinny form looked like a giant praying mantis. She also looked like she might well be ready to eat her mate. The man gave a friendly smile, while the woman pointed imperiously at Delly and gave the command: "Cook something."

Delly half-stumbled to a kitchen area that was provided. The other girls were mostly at a bar, either demonstrating their skill mixing beverages or spilling drinks on their blouses, and nobody else was competing for the spacious stove. Delly made scrambled eggs, the only thing she had ever cooked for herself, and burned them. She tried not to drip tears or snot into the eggs as she offered them to the couple, and in that, at least she succeeded. The dapper not-so-gentleman was looking off in the direction of the bar. A jab from his wife brought his eyes back to Delly. The woman took a long, stern look at her and said, "One hextus."


	9. Life Below

Gale quickly settled into a routine: Twelve hours in the sewers, six hours of school, and six hours sleeping after he staggered to his room back in the Ghetto. His nominal assignment was to Precinct Seven, a long strip of utility complexes that, along with the Ghetto, formed the east edge of south Capitol. However, his work took him all over the city, and he soon admitted to himself that it suited him better than any alternative, especially when he was on Asher's crew. Not a day went by down there without some surprise, and no matter how unpleasant it might be, it kept true monotony from setting in. Classes, by comparison, would consist of sitting in a room full of bright lights that made him dizzy, casually watching Foxy to relieve the tedium while a professor spend hours meticulously explaining what he could work out for himself in half an hour of reading.

Gale and Asher descended to a flagged junction and found themselves waist deep in water. Each junction had two pipelines on each side, covered by a grate. The parallel pipelines allowed water to contnue to flow through one if the other was blocked. Asher checked the grates on the left, and Gale checked the grates on the right. "Now here's your problem," Asher said.

He turned a handle and flipped the grate sideways, revealing a mass of something plastered across the entire grate. Gale took a look, and managed not to puke. He had learned enough to be familiar with the creatures that existed in self-sustaining populations: rats, lobser-sized freshwater crustaceans, the occasional cat or dog, and fishes that could go cross-country for some distance. This was nothing like amy of them. He wasn't even sure if it was plant or animal. It looked vaguely like one of those strange marine creatures that were more like plants than an animal. He was further revolted to see the tendrils of the mass wriggle at Asher's touch. "What is it?" Gale asked.

"Exotic aquarium pet, probably Muttation," Asher said, raising an axe. "Not our department; just start chopping... We have do deal with this all the time. The snobs are always breeding new things, and flushing them when the next thing comes along. They think their pets will just go with the flow all the way to ocean. Of course, if the water system were that inefficient, every last Capitolite would've died of thirst centuries ago. Usually, they die outright from shock or stuff in the water; if they don't, they bounce around until they get stuck in a grate or flushed into a grinder."

Gale asked a question that had been digging at his mind: "The first day, you talked about a grinder getting backed up. So, what is a grinder like, and what kind of thing would jam one?"

Asher laughed. "A grinder is a huge array of machinery, big enough to go through several levels of the sewer, and their job is to turn solids into liquids. I started handling them, and believe me this is a step up. Nothing can actually jam a grinder. My trainer did a demonstration where he dropped a half-stick of nitro in one of them, and it kept running just fine. But somethimes, they back up. Usually, like I said, it means there's a block in one of the effluent lines, or, the holding tanks back at the Head don't have room for more. But sometimes, a grinder will get something big and tough enough that it will reverse, just spit whatever it is back up. Then to keep a pressurized flow, it sucks processed effluent back up, and if it isn't shunted properly, we get overflows. A lot of people had to have screwed up big time to cause the mess we cleaned up."

Pieces of the mass drifted back down the pipeline. "There. One good flush will send the lot into a grinder. A tough critter can make a go of it, but the grinders always get them sooner or later. The real old timers will tell you stories about things that were bred for the old gladiators to fight... It happened, no question. There were trap doors in the arenas for dumping dead Mutts straight into the sewers, and at the Colliseum, if a Mutt went through too many gladiators they would flood the Arena and flush it straight into a grinder. But sometimes, a Mutt escaped through the basement, or they dumped a corpse that wasn't really a corpse, and once- at least- a Mutt managed to escape from a grinder. Of course, those old timers and a lot of the new guys will say some of them are still out there but there's nothing too it. Mutts can't breed themselves, and the ones in the arena were designed with a built-in lifespan of less than three months. They're all long gone, even if the grinders didn't get them."

Gale nodded, but he was already thinking about something that made him uneasy: To get so thoroughly entangled in the crate, whatever Thing the mass had been would have had to be moving very fast... _against the current_.

Their next assignment was an inspection of the collection level. They went from junction to junction, flipping grates to advance. Gale took the pipe on the right, Asher took the left. His tablet showed the grid, and Asher advancing in step. As they approached the next junction, Gale halted. The screen showed a signature ahead, around the corner from the junction. This was not a rat or a crab. It was too big. It was big enough to be human.

There was a banging throgh the pipe, a signal from Asher to check if Galewas okay. He just ran ahead through waist-deep water, and the tablet showed the unknown running away. He reached the grate, and twisted and pulled a handle to turn the grate sideways. He squeezed through into the junction, and he could clearly hear more sloshing of another set of feet going down the intersecting pipeline, and the creak of a grate being turned. He turned a grate sideways, and was starting to go through when Asher caught him by the arm. He tried to protest, but only managed to sputter, "But- but-" and point down the pipeline, where a grate still stood sideways.

"Gale," Asher said, and there was a firmness in his tone that made Gale look him in the eyes. "I know." He signaled for Gale to stay, and advanced down the pipe with even strides. When he reached the pipe, he turned the handle and shut it.

"It's my fault," Asher said as he returned. "I didn't think I needed to tell you about them yet. I did tell you not to follow anything, and I hoped you would understand if it came to that. They been down here long as anybody can remember. They probably just come and go, one way or another. But there's been more of them the last year or so. Nobody's ever talked to them, but we have what you could call an unspoken arrangement: They stay out of our way, and we act like they aren't there."

Gale opened his mouth to ask the question, but Asher silenced him with a raised finger. "Don't," he said. "Don't ask, because it's none of our business. Understand? Mind your business, and you will get by." Gale nodded. He understood, all right. Tributes like himself would have nothing to lose but their lives, and they would choose death before living down here. Only the Capitol's own could be desperate enough to live as a derelict in the sewers, and what forces could drive them to that extremity were certainly far beyond anything he would ever be allowed to know. Ultimately, he really didn't care. The Capitolites were rotten, pure and simple, and anything they did to each other was simply fate dealing what they already deserved.


	10. High Places

Delly and Madge both went straight from the Academy to the First Precinct, directly southwest of the Citadel. In past times, when wealth and political power had been entirely synonymous, it had been a district of mansions for the city's wealthiest citizens and their personal servants. But over the centuries, the elite had decided that perhaps pulling the strings of power directly was beneath their station, and migrated elsewhere. The most prestigious estate had been built up into the Presidential Mansion, and a few others had been retained by families that deigned to remain active in government. The rest of the precinct had been converted into administrative buildings and crowded but orderly and well-kept apartment towers for those who worked in them. Madge went to an apartment, while Delly was magnanimously admitted to the servant quarters of a Senator's modest mansion.

"Thank you so much for taking me in," Delly told her new benefactress.

"Do not speak unless spoken to," the matron said without looking up from her book. Madge sat quietly, fidgeting. She got up and went to see if there was something to do in the kitchen. "Did I excuse you?" Madge sat back down.

Eventually, there was a merciful knock at the door, and the matron gave a silent signal for Delly to answer. She returned with a steaming, grease-stained box of sweet-smelling pastries. "The baker delivered jelly buns," she said. "Do you want me to take them to the kitchen?"

"No, leave them here. Would you like one?" Delly gave a curtsy and a squeak of thanks as she accepted a plate with big pastry, though she winced at the sight of a pool of grease coming right out of the pastry like sweat. Still, she wolfed it down by the time the matron finished half of her neatly cut bun. "Here, would you like to have another?"

Delly ventured to offer a meek and polite defiance. "No thank you," she said. "As long as I'm here in the Capitol, I should probably watch my figure..." She looked up as the Senator passed, hand in hand with an adopted little boy who nevertheless had the Senator's eyes.

The matron snatched Delly's plate, and placed another bun on it. Then she all but jabbed the plate at Delly. "Here," she said in her most authoritative voice, "have another."

* * *

Madge's assigned workplace was the Treasury Building. It was not a storehouse of money, but a meeting place of a Council of Senators and Assemblymen responsible for managing the currency of Panem. It was one of the newer buildings in the Precinct, and quite strange in shape, essentially an upside-down pyramid with its apex driven into the ground. Workers arrived by underground train and entered through the basement. As soon as Madge left the platform, a crew of Peacekeepers ordered her to strip and turn out the contents of her pouch. She complied, but shrieked when a Peacekeeper blithely pocketed the gold mockingjay pin she had brought with her as a token.

"That's mine!" she shouted. "It's my personal property!"

"What is?" the Peacekeeper said with a snear.

A second Peacekeeper stepped in. "Don't be an ass, Lucian," he said. "I saw you take it."

"She probably stole it," the first Peacekeeper countered. "Mind your own business, Darius

"That's not true!" Madge said. "I got it from my mother, and she got it from her mother. She's from the oldest merchant family in the district, and my father is Mayor!"

Another Peacekeeper, obviously in command, stepped in. "What's the matter?"

"Commander Thread, this Tribute has contraband," Lucian said, holding up the pin. "It could be used as a weapon. Could be poison."

"Well, if it's crontraband, then it goes in evidence," the commander said. He took one look at the pin, and laughed. "I once busted a Trib who made a shank out of a sharpened katniss root. That was a better weapon than this."

He moved to hand the token back. Lucian spoke up: "It's gold. 24 kay, I bet. You know the new laws against hoarding."

"Funny you should wait to mention that," Darius said. "She already told she received it from her family in her home District. Besides, the laws are for old coinage and raw gold. Relics such as jewelry are specifically exempted."

"Well, I think it's obvious the young lady hasn't committed any crime," Thread said. He looked her in the eye and continued,"But you haven't been wise, either. This is a very valuable item for someone of your station to carry in public. If you leave it with us, we can return it to your place of residence at the end of the day. I suggest that you find a safe place to keep it in the future."

"I volunteer to deliver it," Darius said. "I can also give you an address of someone who rents safe deposit boxes. They are reliable and very trustworthy."

"Thank you," Madge said. Only then did she think to put her clothes back on. "Maybe we'll see more of each other."

"Well, I'm here every day," Darius said with a hint of a smile, "and it's going to be like this every day."


	11. Mastered

Once Katniss and Peeta received sponsors, they were transferred to the Fifth Precinct, still widely known as the Gladiators' quarter. The precinct was largest in the Capitol, forming a bridge between the patrician north and plebian south, and dedicated to art, learning and athletics. Society at all levels had long since abandoned any pretense which of the three held preeminence. The Precinct held five state-owned Arenas, ranging from the huge and prestigious Presidential Colliseum to the sprawling proletarian Victory Forum, and a dozen Academies where athletes and others meant for the Arenas were trained and quartered. In practice, the individual academies had long since been subdivided into Schools run by Sponsors who leased sections of their facilities from the nominal owners, almost all ruling families in the opulent Fourth Precinct. Katniss and Peeta went to seperate schools within the small but prestigious Independents' Academy.

A week into their stay, Katniss found Peeta in the central yard of the Academy. Peeta wore a plain, noticeably weathered wool tunic and a tight leather hood over his head. The hood was designed to give competitors anonymity, as well as protecting the eyes and preventing biting, but it had the colors and marks of Johanna's School, and there was no mistaking him for Thresh. Katniss felt a little embarassed wearing the gold-and-black jumpsuit of the Odair School, run by the last champion gladiator. "How do I look?" he said. He briefly opened the tunic, revealing a leather girdle beneath.

"Easier on the eyes," Katniss said with a nervous laugh. Her face quickly became serious. "How are things where you are?"

Peeta shrugged. "Well... It's a small setup, just the two of us, Johanna, and a guy named Blight, in four rooms including our training area. Then Jo... She's got a nasty mouth, and she literally kicks our butts if we don't perform well enough for her. But... she takes her clothes off a lot, and... sometimes, she looks at me funny. She sleeps by herself, though." He looked at Katniss. "I was more worried about you being in Odair's school. You know his reputation."

Katniss just laughed. "He's only showed up once," she said. "He seemed a bit shy, actually. Seeder won't let us talk about him. She's in charge of the girls, and a guy named Chaff is in charge of the boys. He's dark like Thresh, and missing a hand, and get this, they both used to be gladiators! They both come down hard on boys who try to mess with us."

"That's good," Peeta said. "Well, take care." Then he shed his tunic, and Katniss watched with ammusement as he squared off against Thresh, while Johanna shouted profane criticisms and encouragements.

Thresh beat Peeta, somewhat less badly than usual. He was already developing real skill, as several students from other schools learned when they lined up to fight him. He won more contests than he lost, while Thresh went undefeated. Johanna called for a stop at mid-afternoon, just before the Odair's Advanced Class was released.

"You're a natural, really," Johanna told Peeta. "By Demonstrations time, you will be as good as Thresh." The Spring Demonstrations were the semi-official opening of the Games season. Each academy was given use of an Arena to showcase its best students, which normally included at least one student from each school. Those who performed well could expect sponsorships and invitations to better events.

Back at the school, Thresh started practicing single-stick with Blight. Peeta talked to Delly on the phone for about twenty minutes, telling her about everything but Johanna. When he looked across the room and saw her leaning against the frame of the open door, he excused himself and hung up. "What do you want, Jo?" Peeta asked.

"A winning pankratiast, for starters," Johanna said. "Then maybe a swimming pool full of gold, and a swimming pool full of jewels, and a wardrobe big enough to put an army in drag. You know, the little things. How about you? What do you want to do? Go home? Marry that girl? Get in bed with that girl?" She laughed as Peeta blushed. She shut the door, shed her clothes and kissed him.

"Go away," Peeta said. "I know the law. A Tribute can't be ordered to give... that."

Johanna laughed. "I can order you to take off your clothes and get on the bed," she said.

"I'm not afraid of you," he said. She leaned over, gazing into his eyes.

"You know something.? You're right," Jo said. "Guys are always afraid of me. I can always tell. But not you. In fact, I bet you're less afraid right now than you would be standing in the courthouse with your fat slob of a fiancee. I wonder why."

"Get off me, you whore!" He lunged at her, hands raised to strangle. She made a slight, quick motion, and in the next instant, he was sprawled across his own bed, gagging and choking.

"I like you, Peet," Jo said, "I really do. I'd like to help you... maybe show you handle the little dumpling? So, lesson _numero uno _and _el primero... _be nice. What you just said wasn't nice." She reached behind her back with both hands. He gasped, biting back a scream.

"Don't talk that way about my girl," Peeta said through clenched teeth.

"Don't call me a whore," Jo said.

"Get up," Peeta said. Jo stood up cautiously, and Peeta rose. She backed up, and he advanced, pushing her toward the wall. She pushed out a hand to stop him.

"Whatever happens, I need to know one thing up front," she said. "Do you think you're falling in love with me?"

"No," he said. "I'm pretty sure I hate you."

"Good," Jo said calmly. "A lot of guys think they're in love with me, and not just the ones who say so. I can always tell that, too. Usually, there's nothing I can do but cut 'em loose..."

Just then, the phone rang.

Johanna calmly and matter-of-factly pushed Peeta aside and picked it up. "Hello, Mason Pankratiatics School... Oh, just a moment!" She covered the mouthpiece. "It's Delly. Should I tell her it's a bad time?"


	12. In The Ghetto

After six weeks in the Capitol, Gale was done with classes, and so he finally started doing more in the Thirteenth Precinct than sleep. His room was about as big as the stateroom on the Capitol train car, with half again the occupancy. The only concession to privacy were six lockers to hold their clothes and any other personal effects. A roommate from Three casually opened each and every one the first day he was there.

One thing Gale didn't have to worry about securing his credit slips. It turned out that the Capitol had decided to replace them with cards, issued with his belt pack. The Capitol had also closed the Tribute shop (which still stood in the middle of the four-building block) with vending machines. He took his card with a 25-credit advance and went to check out the bank of machines in the center of the building.

The first two machines offered small food items and cold drinks for a quarter each. He went through four credits for a variety of nuts, dried fruit, jerky, granola bars, a purple-flavored soda and one chocolate bar. The next two machines offered hot soup or a chilled sandwich for one credit; he bought clam chowder.

The last machine advertised health and hygiene products. He bought a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bar of soap. He looked casually at a few products at the very top. There were feminine products, and rubber things he had heard of but never seen before, and a selection of pills. His eyes lit on one particular kind, the ones Haymitch had talked about. His eyes narrowed at the price: Ten credits, 40% of a week's wages, for ten that were to be taken daily. It was half again the rate Haymitch had reported. Something was driving the price up. On a completely unaccountable impulse, Gale bought one set.

Though the Tribute shop was closed, the building was still being used for something, and the common area around it remained active. Gale went to one of the outdoor dining tables and sat down, aware of footsteps trailing him; female, or he would have done something about it then and there. He ate his soup, quickly deciding that, whatever a clam tasted like, there had never been anything like a clam in his chowder. He was halfway through when someone sat down beside him. He looked over into the face of a woman with slightly dusky skin like his own, dressed in a noticeably worn tunic. "Hi, I'm Enya," she said, smiling without showing teeth. "Are you from Twelve?" He nodded. "I'm from Nine."

Gale looked her over. It seemed natural she would be from Nine. She seemed mysterious, and nobody knew anything about the District 9, so naturally she was a Niner. He kept eating his soup, looking, not at her, but for anyone else looking at her. There was nobody. Then he took another good, long look at her face, thinking of all the pictures he had seen of things the Capitolites did to themselves. He drank the last of his soup and said, "Let's go for a walk."

Enya walked beside Gale around the yard, and now he could clearly see the way everyone looked everywhere _but_ at her, including the guard on the spidery watch tower. They headed toward a particular corner of the yard, where a screen of hedges and a maintenance shed were recommended for privacy. He stopped a little short of the bushes, turned to her, and said, "Nice shoes." As he spoke, he looked down at her shoes. They were undoubtedly cheap, as the Capitolites reckoned cheap, but they were still more than Tributes could afford for all the money they might earn in their lives. "I could tell by the sound, when you wer following me. I hunt back home."

"I know," she said calmly. "You're Gale Hawthorne. People are talking about you. I wanted to see what the talk was about. So, what do you want to do?" Gale looked at her, and remembered...

"I gave the speech for the ladies when everybody could hear it," Haymitch said. "But there's some things that need to stay between us guys. You know how things are for the women: not good by a long shot, but not that bad, when you think about it. What it really comes down to is the Capitolites' honor code. When it's one of their men messing with a Tribute girl, they can pat her on the head and call it chivalry. But when it's a male Tribute with one of their `nice' ladies, honor means blood. It doesn't matter what really happened, or even what she wants. The family will make sure you go down for rape, and the penalty for a Capitolite is death by impalement. For Tribute, things get a lot nastier..."

Gale looked at Anya and smiled. "I'm going to walk away," he said, doing just that. "If you really want a piece of this, try paying for it." By the time he was back to the tables, "Anya" was nowhere in sight. The men broke into modest applause.

Gale ventured into the old store. Directly inside were more vending machines, some identical to the ones in the building and others selling unique goods. One sold clothing, at two credits for a tunic in a range of colors. He bought two for variety, one a mournful baby blue and the other red, and had to pay an extra half cred to get the supposed extra large. Another dispensed cups of beer; Gale took special interest in a prominent warning that there was a limit of six drinks per day, and the cards of those who had reached their limit would be refused.

The remainder of the shop had been converted into an entertainment room. He recognized a computer version of one of the shooting galleries in the carnivals that went through the District towns now and then. Everything else was unfamiliar if not entirely bewildering. He went to the shooting game, and picked up the mockup weapon, getting a feel for it before he put money down. It was a weapon that was little more than a legend, a stockless repeating firearm known as a revolver. The mockup was at once too bulky and too light for good balance. He quickly judged that the real thing would be about as accurate as a drunk's piss. Still, he put down a half credit and started shooting.

The objective of the game was to shoot glowing discs that flew two at a time from the bottom of the screen into the simulated distance. Shooting down six out of ten earned an extra round, and a perfect score was a credit toward a free continue. As the rounds progressed, the discs moved vaster, got smaller and began to move evasively, while the minimum number went up. Gale got to round 25 on one credit. All the while, he could here the spectators behind him, talking and exchanging something. Obviously, people were betting, he could only guess with what. When it was done, he turned around, smiling. "How's that for a first time?" he said. Several women giggled, and Vixen smiled directly at him.

He accepted congratulations, and the Vixen slipped something to him. "This is half of what I won," she whispered to Gale. "I bet on you. Always. Take it. You deserve it."

He took a look at what was in his hand. It was twenty more of the pills.


	13. Personas

Katniss stood in line for morning inspection, one of twenty women enrolled at the Odair School. A full dozen were Capitolites, and seven were from the Ruling Houses. From what Katniss had gathered, there had been a growing sentiment among the Capitolites that enrollment at one of the Academies was a sound and acceptable way either to clean up a bad girl's manners or teach a nice girl how to stay nice.

"Listen up," Seeder said. "You have had a month to hone your basic skills and identify your special abilities. But for the next month, you will need to work harder every week than the last three combined. The Spring Demonstration is coming up. The Demonstration will decide who goes to the Inter-Academy Competitions, and the Competitions will decide who goes to the Games. But first, you need to prove that you are the best of this school, and best of the Academy!"

The girls broke up into their usual groups, supervised by various assistants. Katniss went to a group under Seeder's direct supervision. The others in her elite group were Glimmer, a mediocre but showy Tribute from One, and Enya, one of the House Capitolites. The other girls from the Ruling Houses clearly saw the training regime as nothing more or less than a way to satisfy their parents and keep a low profile. But Enya was cheerfully obsessed with the Games and especially becoming a gladiatrix.

"So," Enya said happily, "when do we learn how to kill people?"

Seeder smiled. "True gladiators were not killers," she said. "They were skilled athletes, highly trained and well-equipped. They were never forced to waste their talents-not to mention their sponsors' money- by fighting each other to the death. There were deaths in their contests, mainly from accidents, but they were few. At the time the gladiators were banned, it had been more than a decade since a gladiator had killed another. Some actually complained about it."

Katniss twirled her hair. "So, we don't kill people," she said. "What do we do?"

"First and foremost," Seeder answered, "you put on a show. Second, you have to look good doing it. Finally, but going right into the first two, you establish a persona. People won't cheer for you if they don't think they know who you are. What they see doesn't have to be you, but it has to fit well enough for people to buy it. Odair has hired a stylist to design costumes for each of you, based on your aptitudes and personalities. Your training will begin with trying them on. There will be no changes."

Each Persona were supposed to represent godesses that were ancient before the time of the Ancients, and each had received a stage name accordingly. "Glimmer is Dianna, goddess of the hunt and queen of the wild places and protector of the young," Seeder intoned. Glimmer emerged, and to Katniss's disgust, she carried a bow. A silver mask covered her face, but there was nothing covering her chest.

Enya received her costume next. "Enya shall be Minerva, godess of learning and civilization, mild in peace but strong in time of war." Enya wore a somewhat skimpy breastplate and a Corinthian helmet, and carried a leaf-shaped sword and a shield painted with a Gorgon.

Katniss went reluctantly to receive her costume. She put it on with the help of the designer, a pleasant man named Cinna, and she needed the help. She emerged, cautiously happy. Her costume and assumed alter ego was Proserpine. Her mask was ivory, and her outfit was black leather. It was tight and short, but it at least covered her up. Her armament was a sickle. She bore a foot-long shield with three slavering dogs' heads. "Proserpine," Seeder announced, "Queen of Hell! Now, for a special surprise, here's Chaff, the oldest surviving gladiator!" A big man with dark skin entered, waving and smiling. He ate an apple from a hook that had replaced his right hand.

"Hello, ladies," he said. "Any of you think you can fight?" Glimmer happily volunteered. She entered with a chrome-plated flail she had been practicing on. She advanced like she was fighting the air, kicking high in the air and swinging the ball and chain in elaborate patterns that always seemed to get maximum flash from the long, sharp spikes. Katniss would probably have been impressed herself if she hadn't seen how many times Glimmer had clocked herself with the blunted practice specimen. Chaff stood his ground, clad in a loincloth, helmet, and a little armor on his shoulders and extremities. He bore a paddle-like club and a shield fastened to his right forearm. Glimmer reached the middle of the ring, and gave a shriek, as if either trying to frighten him or simply in fury at his indifference. Then she made ready to charge, but Chaff got to her first.

The old gladiator crossed the intervening space in long strides, business-like but not in a rush. Glimmer lashed with the flail, and the ball struck Chaff's suddenly upraised shield. A goodly part of the long, sharp, shiny spikes snapped right off as the ball first bounced off the shield and then rebounded into Glimmer's mask. Chaff slapped Glimmer across face, first with the flat of the club and then even harder with his shield. She reeled back, still clearly hoping to buy enough room for a proper strike with the flail. Chaff took a lazy lunge, and knocked the weapon right out of her hand. With that, he threw aside the club and lifted Glimmer by the throat.

"I yield!" she squeaked out. Chaff slammed her down, crouching on top of her. He yanked off her mask and helmer, as well as his own. Then he pressed a sloppy kiss to her lips, and started pulling off the rest of her costume. Katniss looked to Seeder, sure she would intervene. She did not.

When glimmer was bare, Chaff kissed her again and said, "You yield what?"

"Anything!" she whimpered. "Everything!" She spread her legs, even as she voided in fear. "Just don't hurt me!"

Chaff grinned. "What if I don't like white meat?" With that, he slammed her head down and departed the ring, leaving Glimmer lying semiconscious.

"That," Seeder said, "is the kind of thing that will happen if any of you get yourselves in a real fight. That is why fighting should be the least of your concerns. Look beautiful, flash some metal and a lot of skin, and nobody will care how much you stink. Any questions?"

Katniss stepped forward. "Can I fight Chaff?"

Chaff chuckled as she took a fighting stance. She smiled behind her mask, and threw her shield. The shield went flipping like a coin instead of spinning, and came closer to hitting a still-groggy Glimmer than Chaff. Still, it was a moment's distraction, and Katniss used it to dive in, slashing with the sickle for Chaff's legs. She hoped to snag the brass greaves that protected his calves and pull him off his feet. She might have, except that the gladiator was quick-witted and nimble enough to jump. He came down with his heel at her throat. She promptly let go of the sickle.

Chaff removed his helmet, to reveal a good-natured smile. "It wouldn't have worked," he said. "You don't have the muscle to pull a guy like me, and besides, I woulda just come straight down on top of you. Still, you got the right idea." He looked at Seeder. "This one right here, this is your fighter."

"Yes," Seeder said. "Too bad she can't put on a better show."


	14. Foxy

The day's assignment for Gale and Asher was another inspection. They dictated what they saw into voice recorders built into their helmets, but mostly talked to each other as they walked, their voices carrying between the pipelines. "You doing okay in the Precinct?" Asher asked. There was a cloying tone in his voice that bugged Gale, all the more because it made him think of Foxy.

"Yeah, I'm doing okay," he said. After a little while, he asked, "What's the deal with the pills?"

Asher chuckled. "I expect you're smart enough to figure out a barter economy. If you want something you can't get from the machines or the Commons shops, or you just prefer not to have everything you buy in the Capitol's system, you trade a pill for it. It's one credit to a pill, less if the packaging's damaged or it's past the expiration date. Oh, and fair warning: It's really only men who trade in the pills. Women get into it some, but only to trade with men. If you offer pills to a woman, she might get the wrong idea."

"Like, you want to buy her?"

"There are guys that thick," Asher said. "O' course, I'm sure you can see, there's nothing for a lady to get in that deal that she couldn't just as well have by givin' nothing at all. But usually, if a guy makes that offer, it means something more."

"Like, you want to marry her?"

"Or at least go exclusive," Asher said with a laugh. "It can mean all kinds of things, really, and nobody will make assumptions. But if there's a deal, any deal, people will know, and they will expect you to be looking out for her. If you're good to her, others will be good to you. If you aren't, you're gonna be in a world of hurt."

"What does it mean if..." He dropped the pretenses and said: "Vixen gave me pills. A lot."

Asher stopped, grinning through a grate connecting the pipes. "Tell me something half the Ghetto doesn't already know," he said.

"Look, she just gave them to me," Gale said. "She said it was my share of winnings from bets she made on me. She never asked for anything. But ever since, it's been weird. She's always around, but she doesn't come up and talk to me the way she used to, and when I try to talk to her, she avoids me or acts like I'm not there. And people are starting to give me these looks!"

Asher laughed. "You know, you're probably the smartest Tribute ever to come out of Twelve," he said. "But I keep telling people, only someone as smart at you can be that stupid. Do I really have to spell this out for you? She's waiting for you to make an offer!"

That night, Gale finally went to her room, and waited. And waited He was still waiting when he started at a whisper in his ear: "What do you want?"

He looked at Foxy. Now this was really the worst part: He didn't know what he wanted. He just said the first thing that entered his mind: "I wanted to give these back." He handed back the pills she had given him the night of his streak at the arcade. She looked back at him coolly. "Take them. You're the one who needs them... well, more than I do."

"I'm sure you've done your research on the barter economy," Vixen said. "So I expect you know what it means when a guy gives a girl pills."

"But I'm not giving them to you," Gale said. "They're yours. You won them."

"No, you did the winning," she countered. "I just knew a sure thing when I saw it."

"Please!" he said. "Just take your pills!" He bit his lip as he said it.

"Okay, I'll take them," she said. "I'll take them on one condition... Give me a reason to use them."

Gale blinked. "You... You... Why?"

"You see me," she said. "Usually, people just look right through me. Usually, it suits me just fine. But I saw you look at me, and I liked it. Then you talked to me, like you want to know me, and I knew right away, you're a good man. You could take good care of a girl, and I could use some taking care of... and I wouldn't like to get something for nothing."

"That's it?" Gale asked. "You want me because I'm nice to you?"

She shrugged. "You have nice eyes," she said.

"I like your hair," he said, running his fingers through her copper locks. Then he kissed her

An hour later, they were eating dinner at one of the outdoor tables. The others around them were looking at them and whispering, but the looks and voices were all kind. More than a few paused for friendly conversation, mostly reciprocated by Gale. His only spontaneous exchange of words with Vixen was when he asked her to pass the salt. After a little while, Vixen started reading a cheap paperback, and she casually took Gale's left hand. He finished the last few bites on his plate and extended his right to her, freeing his left to toy with her hair some more.

When they were back at Vixen's door, Gale whispered in her ear, repeating what he had told her as he hoisted her behind the shed: "You're my Foxy Girl. You are my one and only, and I will be your boy."


	15. Love And Money

"Oh, Peeta! I'm so glad you called!" Delly gushed. "Oh, don't worry, I'm on break. I probably shouldn't talk long, though... I really don't do a whole lot, mostly just serve them food, and sometimes, the Senator calls me in just to talk... Oh, about home, mostly... Yes, I know, but with me, he really does just want to talk... Oh, Peeta... I love you, too."

She hung up, blushing, and blushed all the more when she saw the Senator looking in on her. "Senator Carter," she said, "I... I was just getting done with my break."

"It is fine," he said with a smile. "Actually, I was just thinking that I would like to talk. Perhaps we could do a little work in the garden while we're at it." They went down a corridor, into a "garden" that could just as well have been called a park. It was more than a hundred yards long, enclosed on all sides by the buildings of the estate. The Senator and Delly went to trim the rose bushes around a gazebo. Delly knew that they would be watched vigilantly by the mistress. He trimmed with an almost delicate pair of shears, while Delly held a bag.

"Have I told you, about my work?" the Senator said. "I chair the Treasury Council. It sounds more glamorous than it is, but the work is very important. It comes down to accounting, which I understand you have done yourself. But there is more to it. Are you familiar, Delia, with inflation?"

"You mean, like how sixteen aces isn't really a diem?"

The Senator gave her a hint of a smile. "That is not exactly the same thing," the Senator said, "but obviously, you know rather more than you are supposed to. No matter. Here in Capitol, what a Tribute knows about the worth of brass is the least of our concerns. Actually, between you, myself and the bushes, our biggest secret is that a diem is not worth a diem any more."

Delly looked at the Senator. "It may help to picture this: A man owns the only tavern in a village far from any other. All the men come to his tavern, as they must, and he becomes rich. But he is a spendthrift. He loses money, and borrows more, and then he must borrow still more at higher interest just to pay his business expenses. Soon enough, he discovers that he has borrowed more for a single shipment of beer than he can get for selling the beer. So, what does he do?"

"He waters down the beer," Delly said.

"Exactly," the Senator said. "That is what we in the Capitol have been reduced to. Just to pay for debts we already owe, we must mint new diems and lune out of less silver and gold. But as soon as we do that, the merchants charge higher prices, and even insist on payment in old coins. So we pass innumerable laws setting prices, and now `hoarding' laws to force citizens to turn in their old coins. But it will never be enough, and now the soldiers are restless..."

The Senator trailed off, and after a time of silence he started to talk about Peeta. "Your young man is already making a name for himself, you know," he said. "It's been reported that he is leading the Independents' Academy in numbers of matches won, though they say another student is even better. It's not quite official yet, but I have confirmation that he will be performing an exclusive demonstration at the Founders' Forum on opening day. Would you like to come with me?" Delly just gasped.

"My family is a long line of patrons of pankration," the Senator continued. "It is and always has been the most prestigious of sports. Many of the old guard lament that it has become too popular, and too much a substitute for the gladiators. I myself don't care for the recent... excesses. But unarmed martial athletics remains the pinnacle of pure and undiluted skill and spirit, and the essence shall always be there."

"I would love to go," Delly said. She hadn't seen Peeta in person since they left the Tribute. Oh, dear... how fat had she gotten? She burst into tears, buring her face in the Senator's shoulder. After a moment's hesitation, the senator put an arm around her. "I'M A FAT PIG! Even back home, the girls call me a pig, and they're right, I always eat too much, even when everyone else is starving! The worst part is, I can lose weight when I really try, and I've tried so hard, but then I lose control just once, and then I feel so bad I let it all go, and here, you just have so much, and when I do try mistress always tempts me, she practically makes me... And that's the only reason she lets me be around you, I'm a fat pig, and no man would ever want me!"

"Delia," Senator Carter said softly. Delly raised her head to look at him. "I know what my wife has been doing. I have told her, it must stop. And do not worry, things will be better. Yours was never a serious problem. You have never been anything but a well-endowed lass with a mild weakness for appetite. There are women far worse off than you are or ever would have been. There is a reason the Capitol has perfected weight loss to a high art."

Delly edged back a bit. The Senator laughed. "I know you are aware of my reputation, and I have never pretended it is undeserved. But truly, I am past it. My greatest weakness was that it took much too long for me to learn to appreciate a woman's friendly company. I owe a great deal of that to you. I fear I shall never have that pleasure with my wife. That is why she is spiteful toward you. I give you my word, that too will change. She has never truly loved me, but she has learned to obey me."

As Delly returned from the garden, she was smiling, and she broke into a somewhat self-conscious hum. She quieted at the sight of the mistress. "Good afternoon," she said. "Should I prepare dinner?"

"No, the kitchen staff has things well in hand," the mistress said. "But come here, and help me arrange the wardrobe." Delly followed the mistress up to her bedroom (the lord and lady of the house were long past pretenses about their sleeping arrangements) and into a walkin closet as big as a Seam hut.

"I know he is fond of you," the mistress said without turning around. "For his sake, I could learn to be fond of you. Now, would you like to marry your boy?"

"Of course," Delly said, though there was a quaver in her voice.

"I know," mistress said. "You are not quite so sure if he wants to marry you, and you worry about that Mason woman... her, and one other. I have made my own inquiries. It is obvious he cares deeply for you. I believe he loves you, in his way, even if he does not understand it, and Duncan agrees. That is why we have decided to make an arrangement. You and your boy will be married. You would like that very much, wouldn't you?"

Delly nodded mutely. "Good. Now, I want one more thing from you, and if you do not satisfy me, I have ways to make sure you never see your beautiful baker's boy again," the mistress said. "There are pills, available in the Ghetto, to prevent a women from conceiving. I know you have some. Once you are married, throw them away."


	16. Good Beginnings

It was the opening day of Spring Demonstrations, and from sunup to nightfall, transports brought the denizens of the Ghetto to the Fifth Precinct for a day of liberty. The Precinct was laid out as one great park, with generous expanses of green between the Arenas and other buildings. Gale and Vixen walked side by side along the brick-paved walkway, with arms locked but without holding hands. Gale moved his arm to reach around Vixen and toy with her braided hair. Running his hands through her copper locks was the one thing about her that gave him the fizzy, dizzy kind of feeling he had always thought being in love would be like. He could spend hours just playing with her hair, if she would let him. He ran his fingers along the braid to a fork at the base of her skull, and then over behind her left ear.

"Yes, I know, you like my hair," Vixen said. "So, remember how I told you I was going to keep track of how much we talk to each other? Well, I wrote down every word we said to each other yesterday, and I came up with a hundred sentences. Sixty-three were about shit."

"That's what you get when you have a workplace romance in the sewer," Asher said. Gale looked over his shoulder at their companions, Asher and a woman named Annie who turned out to be his wife. He fell back, abreast of Asher.

"So," Gale said, "why'd you never tell me you were married?"

"You never asked," Asher said. "I s'pose it wouldn'ta come up..." He held up his right hand. The ring finger and pinky were missing. He put an arm around Annie, who was starting to quiver. At his touch, she quieted. They turned a corner, into a small section of the Precinct dedicated to the old gods.

"Once, this whole precinct was temples," Asher said. "The first Games were performed at the temples in honor of the old gods. They say that in really old times, the Games decided who would be sacrificed."

"Huh," Vixen said. "So, did they kill the loser or the winner...?"

"Long, long story short, the people got to like the Games better than the gods. They say even before the Dark Days, half the temples in the Precinct were empty, and more than half of the ones that were left were being used as cover for prostitution. Afterward, the President Protector ordered the priesthoods abolished, and seized the temple lands and artifacts as community property. The surviving artifacts- idols, vestments and such, and those were few enough- went to the museums, and a handful of temples that were mostly intact were renovated as heritage sites, pretty much because preservation is the sincerest form of contempt. The only exception..."

"...Was the temple of Janus," Gale concluded, "the God of Good Beginnings." They stopped in front of a stone building, where a crowd was gathering. Asher nodded, gazing up with a kind of wary reference at a bas relief image over the central arch, identical to that which was to be seen on most of Panem's coins. It was a stern face, or rather two faces in one, one gazing forward and the other turned in profile within the other.

"Janus was never really a god," Asher said. "Not like the old gods. That's why there's no idol of Janus here- no body to go with those faces. With Persephone and the others, you can look at a pretty statues and imagine the Divine taking our shape to walk among us. With Janus, you can't kid yourself. Not for long. You know, even those faces are just a symbol _we_ made, to give a shape to _something else_... And that's why _they_ like him."

Annie was trembling again, worse than before, and after a moment's murmuring, Asher led her away, back toward the transport station. Gale and Vixen remained, gazing at the temple. "You're sure you want to go through with this?" Gale asked.

"Not if you keep asking me that," Vixen said.

In official pretenses, "religious unions" did not have the status of a civil "marriage contract". However, it was the best option available to those in bond to the Capitol, and even free Citizens often turned to the priesthood, either to add symbolic flare to their unions or circumvent labyrinthine restrictions which had been placed on civil marriages. For Tributes in particular, a union of record gave certain privileges. They could not be reassigned in any manner that would separate them, and were eligible to apply for their own rooms. Their credit could be pooled in a single account. Most importantly, if they bore a child, the cost of delivery could not be charged to their debt.

Vixen, never talkative, was quiet indeed as accolytes ordered the gathered crowd into an orderly but tight-packed mass. Nobody's mood was helped by the presence of two uniformed peacekeepers. One, the elder of the pair, made a show of being cheerful and friendly. "I'm Officer Thread, and this is Darius," he said, throwing a fatherly arm around his subordinate. "Officially, we are on duty. Unofficially, this rascal is getting married!" Darius put his arm around a girl in white. It was enough to draw smiles, laughter and cheers from many, and at least ease fears among the rest. Gale, however, tensed with recognition: The girl was Madge.

The priests asked for no fee, but there was a donation box in front watched by two huge and decidedly unjoyful accolytes. Gale put in a copper quad he had found in a drain, with a nominal face value of four aces. Individual couples were then lined up to sign their names in one of several registers supervised by the minor priesthood. They were also given the chance to recite personal vows. Gale and Vixen simply said to each other the same lines they told each other. Gale began "You are my Foxy Girl. You will be my one and only."

Vixen finished, "And you will always be my only boy."

"By the Power of Janus, I recognize your union," the priest said. "May you go forward with good fortune."

"That was odd," Vixen said as they walked away. "Now what?"

Gale was pondering when he heard a chilling call: "Gale?" It was Madge.


	17. Gladiatrix!

The students of the Independents Academy were invited to perform their demonstration at the Founders' Forum, an old and relatively small venue that time had lent a certain amount of prestige. Where most Arenas had an ovoid shape, the Forum amphiteatre was a perfect circle 150 yards wide. Even more unusually, the tiers of the Arena were not concentric, but instead came together at the base. The ring itself stretched from the center almost to the edge of the amphitheatre. The sand in the ring was a sea-green color, and at the center of the ring was a slender crystal spire sculpted as a water spout, thirty feet tall and topped by a silver latticework platform.

The day opened with a demonstration by the heads of Academy. The crowd cheered at the entrance of Finnick Odair from beneath the stacked box seats, outfitted as Neptune in an ivory chariot pulled by horses somehow turned sea green. Gloss, co-owner of the leading school of Century Academy, followed as Apollo in a chariot of gold. They circled the arena in a friendly race, and launched arrows and tridents at a sea serpent that popped out of the sand. The chariots departed through the same gate they had entered, just before harps and trumpets blared from the sky. The spectators looked up, and for a moment they merely stared in awed silence as three goddesses descended on a cloud.

Katniss looked down. For a moment, she debated whether a jump to the high rises of the amphitheatre was preferrable to staying aboard the "cloud" she and her companions rode upon. The platform vibrated with the force beam that held it aloft, and wobbled constantly with tiny corrections. The music was painfully loud. On top of that, something in the opaque mist of the simulated cloud smelled really bad. There was another moment when she debated whether to pull off her mask and puke. But the cloud was almost in position, and the platform at the spire was expanding to receive them. She could hold out a little longer.

Or maybe not. The announcer was going into a long-winded introduction that blared from the platform's speakers. "In the days that were ancient when the Ancients were new, men worshipped the Powers of heaven and Earth as gods and goddesses. The queen of heaven was _JUNO_!" Seeder stepped onto the platform, now twenty feet wide, in a mask with cow's horns for some reason. "Juno was wife to Jove, the Thunderer, but there were others the King of Heaven loved. To them were born _MINERVA AND DIANNA_!"

Enya and Glimmer stepped into the ring. Glimmer wore the same outfit as before, complete with bow and quiver, except that a metallic bra had been added. Evidently, her encounter with Chaff had dimmed her enthusiasm for exhibition. "Minerva was the goddess of reason, beautiful as the sun, and Dianna Goddess of the Hunt, fair as the moon! Hera envied their beauty and their father's love, and so she called upon _PROSERPINE, QUEEN OF HELL_!"

Time to get it over with. Katniss stepped into the ring. As an extra bit of unpleasantness, her costume generated some kind of fake flames. "With bitter hate the Queen of Darkness struck against the fair goddesses!" Katniss drew a mace-like throwing club called a pomegranate and tossed a lazy throw that bounced off "Minerva's" helmet.

Katniss raised her shield, emblazoned with three slavering dogs' heads, and blocked a javelin thrown by Minerrva. Next, she had to catch three of "Dianna's" arrows with her shield. This was the really dangerous part, and Katniss would have been less worried if Glimmer had actually been trying to kill her. She froze as Glimmer drew the arrow, holding the shield perfectly steady; against stationary targets, Glimmer's marksmanship was actually decent, bordering on good. The arrow struck toward the edge of the shield, and bounced instead of sticking. Katniss drew back and dropped to her knees, trying to look remotely convincing in fright. She held up the shield in front of her face, and the arrow hit dead center. She lowered the shield as Dianna drew the final arrow, and knew immediately that it would go completely wild. She lunged to one side, catching the arrow as she went.

Dianna hurled her shield at Katniss, a move she had clearly practiced. The impromptu discus flew more accurately than her arrows, enough that Katniss stepped sideways just in case. It also preempted Katniss from throwing her own shield as she had facing off with Chaff, since the gladiatrices were instructed not to copy each other's moves in the same fight. Dianna drew a short spear and stalked toward Proserpine, swinging and twirling the weapon with both hands. Katniss reached first for her remaining pomegranate, than for her sickle. Then, as Glimmer charged with her spear held level in front of the head, Katniss help her shield high with both hands and bashed Dianna right over the head.

Two blows brought Glimmer down to hands and knees, and a third laid her prone, groaning and sobbing. Katniss stooped over her and whispered, "Stay down, and you won't get hurt. And by the way, you couldn't hunt a drunken elephant." She straightened, leaving the shield. Minerva was already closing in, with sword drawn and shield raised; there was no move to drop her shield out of fair play. Katniss drew a weapon from across her back. It was a short sword with a sickle's forward hook; she had been told it was called a kophesh, and came from the legendary desert country of Egypt. She had practiced using it to hook and pull away an opponent's shield.

Katniss raised the sickle-sword, and Minerva responded by drawing back her sword and raising her shield. Obviously, she expected Proserpine to snag the shield to make things even. Instead, Katniss reversed the sword and struck Minerva's sword arm with the blunt edge. Minerva dropped her blade with a cry of pain and surprise. Katniss laughed and raised her sword.

That was when Dianna shot her in the back.

When Glimmer's arrow came out her front, her first reaction was that some "gag" embedded in her costume had gone off. In practice, they had simulated wounds more dramatic than this. But no, here came the pain, like ants advancing inexorably through her guts. Her next reaction was to whirl around slash her sickle-sword at Glimmer. Even she could not have it was by skilled design or mere fluke that the blade passed straight through the flimsy front clasp of Glimmer's bra. The avatar of Dianna shrieked and retreated, instinctively dropping the bow to cover herself. Uproarious laughter thundered down from the stands.

Katniss chuckled herself as she raised the sword. But Minerva struck from behind, tripping Katniss with a kick to the shins. "Stay down," Enya whispered. "I'll handle this." Katniss slumped, already succumbing to the relief of shock. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Minerva advancing with her sword, and as darkness descended she heard Glimmer scream.


	18. Rite of Spring

The Founders' Forum, like all Arenas, was really only the centerpiece of a larger complex. In this case, the complex included the Arena Annex, a double-circuit indoor racetrack directly adjoining the Arena. At 200 yards long, the capsule-shaped Annex exceeded the dimensions of the Arena. It could be easily partitioned by retracting sound-proof walls, making it ideal for smaller events during the Games. While Katniss performed in the opening event, Johanna and her students were preparing to appear in a semicircular area at the end of the annex. From the dugout gallery, they could see the stage prepared for them. The floor was a simulated sod, with patchy green and a few trees. The back wall that was the partition showed a forest where a herd of four-tusked elephants were stalked by a sabertooth cat.

"Johanna is really sorry about this," Blight said to Thresh. "Our sponsor insisted on it." The two students were in costume, and Thresh's was a gorilla suit.

Thresh put on his mask and shrugged. "I'd rather have this than his getup," he said, pointing to Peeta. The stylized ape suit consisted of furry leggings, a chinless mask, false paws over his hands and forearms, and furry pads on his shoulders. His exposed skin was all made up to be truly black. Peeta's costume was ostensibly a caveman, and consisted of a hairy mask, a leopardskin loincloth that would have served better as a dishrag, and flesh-toned cesti over his fists. "Well, let's do this thing..."

The end of the arena had become a landscape. Senator Carter sat in the shaded front seat. To either side of him were his wife and Delly Cartwright. He chatted with Delly, while his wife buried her nose in a reading tablet. "I will confess, though, that I had something of an ulterior motive in coming here..." Delly gasped as Peeta entered, carrying a bow and arrow.

"Primitive man," an announcer intoned gravely. Peeta turnd about, gazing up with a look of solemn wonder. Delly blushed as his eyes met hers, and again when he virtually mooned the audience in his traverse. "Alone, and armed only with what he can devise from the raw elements with his bare hands. Utterly at the mercy of the primal forces of nature, and the warring desires of his heart!"

The cat struck, sprinting at a calf that wandered from the herd. The sound system blared with the calf's screams of pain and terror as the cat tore into its flank and then ripped open its belly, and the triumphant roar of the predator before it began to feed on the spilled viscera of its still living prey. Peeta raised his bow and then froze, as if torn between compassion for the calf and fear of drawing the cat's attention. Then the seats shook as an adult bull turned about with a contralto roar and charged. The cat got off one roar before it was slashed in half with the bull's tusks and trampled underfoot.

"But even the wildest beast knows kindness..." The gore-spattered bull turned from the ruined pulp that had been the cat, and caressed the still-squalling calf with its bloody trunk. More elephants gathered, straining to raise the calf to its feet. At last, Peeta fired an arrow, which by some trick merged seamlessly into the projected scene, its flight ending in the calf's eye. The calf let out a final cry and fell, mercifully still. "And in his darkest hour, man found the love of woman." Johanna stepped out from behind a tree in an improbable fur bikini. Peeta stared at her for a moment, and then dropped his bow and offered her a piece of fruit. Delly frowned, while her mistress smiled.

"Then did man face the greatest struggle of all- the war to tame the beast from which he rose!" While Peeta moved to offer a piece of fruit to Johanna, a dark shape appeared in the tree behind her. Thresh leaped down, tore off Johanna's top for now particular reason, and beat his bare chest while she screamed. Peeta snatched up his bow, but the "ape" seized Johanna. Peeta cast aside his bow and quiver and charged the ape with his "bare" fist. His punch connected solidly, with added force from metal weights concealed in the wrappings of his cestus. Thresh rolled with the bunch and dropped convincingly, landing on hands and knees. He charged on all fours like the ape he was meant to be, and Peeta threw himself between woman and beast. Thresh grabbed Peeta and threw him into a tree.

Peeta scrambled down, and a fairly standard pankration ensued. They stuck mainly to fisticuffs, with Thresh using backhanded slaps of his "paws" and occasional slashes with quite sharp claws in place of punches. Peeta held his own, as he usually could, until Thresh closed for the grapple. Despite the encumbrance of the paws, Thresh was more than a match for Peeta, being equal in skill and considerably stronger. He threw Peeta twice, was thrown once himself, and then slammed him down. Thresh held Peeta down face to face, as if the ape were about to tear out the caveman's throat. Peeta took the intended opportunity and delivered a headbutt, knocking Thresh back. Peeta pressed home the attack with a flurry of punches and a few blows with a convenient broken branch. Finally, the caveman caught the ape in a half-nelson and swung him about, face-first into a tree. A trapdoor opened, and two stocky men with horned masks emerged and carried the "slain" ape down to the underworld.

The caveman beat his own chest in victory, and the cavewoman delivered a kiss to her deliverer. The caveman shed his loincloth and pushed cavewoman against a tree. Cavewoman clearly had second thoughts. Johanna escaped by squirming up out of Peeta's arms and doing a backflip right over his head, leaving behind what remained of her costume. The caveman whirled about, and cavewoman prepared to defend herself with a broken tree branch. The fight was over almost as quickly as it had begun. The victorious cave woman dragged the caveman behind the tree. Delly's screech was drowned out by the cheers from the audience and the quite convincing cries playing from the sound system. "Thus did man tame the beast, and woman tame man!"

The senator rose with the audience, clapping firmly and with dignity. "Don't worry," the mistress whispered across the empty seat. "They aren't allowed to do anything. Why, the sounds are probably pre-recorded..."


	19. Wounded Goddess

Katniss awoke in a hospital bed. She tried to sit up, but found herself restrained. "Don't worry," a familiar voice said. She looked up, and started. A whole crew of her friends were there: Peeta, Delly, Madge, Gale, and four people she had never seen before. The unfamiliar faces were two Peacekeepers, an old gentleman who had to be a Games patron, and a slight woman with red hair holding Gale's hand while she read. Gale smiled at her and said, "You're in the Muneran Hospital. I guess you've been here a couple hours. Everyone says you're fine. Senator Carter was here with Delly watching Peeta, she told him about your other friends, and it just happened Madge and I were in this part of town getting married. Not to each other, of course... "

The redhead looked up from her book, looking vaguely curious and probably annoyed. "Katniss, this is Vixen, my wife," Gale said with a smile. "Vixen, this is my good friend Katniss. She was my hunting partner back home. Actually, I suppose she's my best friend."

Vixen stood up and shook Katniss's hand. Katniss felt like she was watching a nervous puppy learning a trick. "Hello, Katniss," Vixen said. She sat down and went back to reading.

"Then you're really okay?" Madge said.

"Apparently," Katniss said. Actually, she felt in worse pain than she had actually getting shot, but she wasn't going to dampen the mood by saying so. "What happened in the Arena?"

Peeta and Delly looked at each other. They sat side by side, but they looked far from happy. Senator Carter said, "The Games are continuing apace, but the peoples' hearts have been with you." He shook her hand, and smiled. "Your demonstration was finished without interruption. The girl who shot you was beaten, rather badly."

"Yeah," Delly said, "they say the girl who shot you got beat up really bad."

Katniss was surprised to find she was not especially happy to hear it. She looked over Peeta, who was bruised and thoroughly bandaged. "Thresh and I went through with a scheduled twenty-on-twenty elimination grapple," he said. "I was eliminated on my third fight. Bad luck. Last I heard, Thresh was still cleaning up. I'll be back for the afternoon rounds."

"That's good," Katniss said. She surveyed the well-meaning faces, and Vixen, reading while Gale stroked her hair. "Listen, I really appreciate this... But could everyone but Gale please go?"

Everyone filed out obligingly. Gale gave Vixen a parting nip on the nose. "Okay, that's weird," she said.

"So," Katniss said, "a lady finally landed the legendary Gale Hawthorne..." Gale gave a sheepish smile. He had been a legend back home. Most of the girls (including Katniss) had known his lips at one time or another. One of the most disorienting things about Capitol was finding that the Capitol girls wanted more than epic makeout sessions. "So what is the deal with her."

"She's not very social," Gale said. "Even with me, she doesn't talk much. Seriously, I talk more than she does, and you know me. Once, we spent a whole day together without saying one word. But it was okay, it was nice... I actually asked her to marry me the day after. She said yes... I mean, she said `Yes', and that was it."

"Do you love her?" Katniss asked bluntly.

Gale shrugged. "What's love?" he asked. "Who knows? Definitely not the people who say they're in love. My mother told me once, she married my Dad for love. I think that was her way of warning me. With Foxy... I call her Foxy... I know I'm happy. Why shouldn't that be enough?"

"Then I'm happy for you," Katniss said. There was more silence, while they both tried to think of things to say. It occurred to Katniss that they had always been quiet together. She had always taken that as a sign that they would not be more than friends. She was about to tell him to invite the others back in when Seeder entered, pushing Glimmer in a wheelchair, with Enya and a couple doctors following behind.

"I thank all of you for your concern," Seeder said, "but I need time to confer with my team..." The guests excused themselves, while the doctors removed Katniss's restraints and unhooked her from the machines. When that was done, Seeder ordered the doctors out, too."

"Now, listen to me very carefully," Seeder said. She looked at Glimmer and Enya. "You did more than screw up today. You both deliberately harmed a team mate, and that is sabotaging the team. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

"She shot Katniss," Enya said.

"She went offscript," Glimmer said.

Seeder leaned closer to Glimmer. "I know how it is... Being a gladiatrix makes you feel strong. Proud. Self-sufficient," Seeder said. "But if you're going to get anywhere, you have to be realistic. You are where you are because someone else paid to put you there. You are not your own. You are a commodity, bought and paid for by another. When you do anything to endanger yourself or someone else without being called on to do it, you are gambling with someone else's treasure. Our sponsors are concerned that you have forgotten that, or you simply don't care. Some of them are ready to pull their money out if they are not entirely satisfied that I have taken steps to resolve this situation."

She straightened. "That leaves me with about three options," she said. "I could take you to court and report that you violated my order and attempted to harm a fellow Tribute. But that would be admitting the problem publicly, and at this time of year, a judge would probably demand a bribe not to feed you to the Mutts. Second, I could take a chance and punish you in house, off the books... but I wouldn't want to do that to Chaff. What I'm going to do is the third option. I'm giving you a chance, one chance, to prove you can follow orders. I will give you instructions, in your conduct outside the Arenas. In the strict sense, these orders will exceed what I have any authority to give. They won't be pleasant, either. But that will make the evidence of your obedience all the more compelling. If you don't like it, you can talk about it in court."

"Seeder," Katniss said, rising on wobbly legs, "I'm fine."

"Fine? You're up after intermission," Seeder said. Her dark eyes bored into Katniss. "And you _were_ off script."


	20. Battle Maidens

"See, my songbird," Darius said, looking down on the Arena from a very select balcony, "I told you I could find us good seats."

"It's Mr. Carter's box," Delly said. "This is the Maidens' Box, reserved for officials and honored patrons..." She addressed a pretty servant setting up a banquet table. "We're friends of the Senator..." Only then did she notice Madge's urgent signals. The servant pointed to her mouth and shook her head, then departed.

"The Capitolites call them Avoces," Madge said. "They're Capitolite convicts, stripped of citizenship and... their speech. I work with a lot of them. I think the Senators prefer them as staff."

"Of course," said Asher. He was already filling up a plate. "They keep their mouths shut. The way I hear, talking isn't the only thing they can't do..."

Just when the little party was starting to settle in, a security guard ducked his head inside. "Who are you?" he said warily.

"We're the sewer rats!" Asher said cheerfully, "and we're here for your cheese!" He stuffed a miniature cheese wheel the size of a diem in his mouth.

"I'm a servant of Senator Carter, and these are my friends," Delly declared, showing off her ring. "The Senator invited us to watch my fiancee compete. And the red stuff is wax, you take it off." Asher pulled the cheese out of his mouth and unpeeled the rind. Madge reached for a small but very well-stocked food table set out, but Thread rapped her knuckle with the flat of his short sword.

"Don't touch anything," Thread said. "This is a place never meant for the likes of us, let alone them, and you're a fool if you take a Senator's word that we're free to stay. So long as we're just standing around, the worst that'll happen is they make us go. But give 'em one excuse to say we took what's theirs, it's all our backs to the wall."

Asher was already stuffing a tote bag. "Say," Asher said, "why do they call it the Maidens' Balcony?"

"Before there were gladiatrices, or even gladiators, there were battle maidens," Darius said. "In the days of the Founders, slaves of fallen masters would fight each other at their lords' tombs to decide who would accompany his soul to the afterworld. At least one temple maiden would preside over their duels, arrayed as Proserpine. She would decide the terms of combat, and sometimes intercede out of mercy or against foul play. When only one man remained, an oracle would call upon the gods and the Unknown to decide his fate. Sometimes, it was decreed that he should kneel before the battle maiden and and receive from her the death blow. But at other times, it was decreed he would have the maiden as his wife, and even have his way with her before the crowd. Then there were still other times when it was decreed that the man and virgin would love and die. When the rites became a profession, the battle maidens remained. Look below! Here they come."

Katniss approached the Arena as the intermission show was wrapping up. The elevated platform was being used by a troop of acrobats in a show for those who remained in the arena through lunch. Her own spirits lifted when she recognized the tiny acrobat twirling over the ring as Rue. She wanted to clap, but it would definitely be breaking character. Not showing enthusiasm got a lot easier as soon as Glimmer stepped up beside her. "Stay on script," "Dianna" whispered.

The two gladiatrices ascended to the platform, Katniss first. At Seeder's order, she wore a backup outfit that bared her midriff, just to show her scar. The audience cheered Proserpine and booed and booed Dianna, but the jeers were high-spirited rather than vengeful. Katniss unfolded the same black bow she had gotten from the Tribute Academy, while Dianna drew a golden bow that Katniss knew was full of circuitry. They took turns shooting at various stationary and moving targets, mainly fanciful synthetic birds held aloft by force beams in patterns predictable enough that even Glimmer hit them easily enough. Then the arena masters unleashed the beast.

The decrees that ended the gladiators had specifically prohibited armed combat between men in the arena, and the training of athletes for same. Loopholes had been put in place to protect the most popular tradition, the Hunt, which was really a ritual slaughter of humans, animals or (usually) both. Specially-bred Muttations were released into the Arena, where they rampaged until specially-equipped venators killed them. This time, the creature was announced as "THE MANTICORE!" Per the legend, the creature was a cross between a man and lion. The Capitol's rendition looked like nothing more or less than a giant golden baboon, and it ran straight for the base of the platform on all fours.

Glimmer froze for a moment, and Katniss felt the pleasure of her terror revenge enough. Katniss fired three arrows chosen for minimal effectiveness, putting two in the beast's back. Glimmer finally fired a shot that hit the ape in the shoulder. It dropped, tumbling end over end, and then roste on its hind legs and leaped..Incredibly, one clawed hand caught hold of the platform's edge, and the beast pulled itself up. It screamed like a puma, baring a set of very sharp teeth. Katniss took aim at the eye, but it was Glimmer who drove an arrow into the beast's eye before it could draw itself onto the platform. As all other eyes followed the ape to the ground, Dianna whispered in Proserpine's ear: "Stay on script."

Katniss gave no response. She didn't really hear the words. She stepped on the "cloud" that ferried them to an officials' balcony, never taking her eyes from the beast. The carcass disappeared down the trapdoor. The platform trasformed itself into a sturdy cage, and six rings were set up in the arena floor around it for the afternoon pankration Her mind was still frozen in the moment when she had lined up her bow perfectly with the beast's eye. The eye...

The eye had looked human.

**I haven't made any notes for a while. I thought it would be worth mentioning that there is a good deal of debate about the origins of the Roman gladiatorial combats. It is absolutely established that the first such combats were associated with funeral rituals, and I believe there are possible parallels to the well-known Egyptian practice of burying slaves to serve their masters in the afterlife. Aside from that conjecture, the account presented here is entirely imaginary.**


	21. Elimination

Senator Carter arrived just in time to see the start of the afternoon Pankration, which he called the Dodeka. "It is the oldest from of large-scale Pankration," he said. "There will be 12 rounds, with as many as six matches at a time. A match is won when the opposing pankratiast cedes victory, is removed from the ring, or else rendered unconscious. The final match of each round will be fought in the cage, and then a final Champion round will be fought between the twelve victors."

Twelve pankratiasts were called, two for each ring on the arena floor. All but three wore the red hoods of Century Academy, and half had the markings of the Apollo School. "The selections are made using a differential engine, identical to the ones used for the Reapings," the Senator said. He chuckled. "The algorithms are actually rather more complex. While individual selections are ultimately a matter of chance, strong weight is given to such factors as strength, skill, size, and past performance, so opponents are generally evenly matched. If two pankratiasts are unequal, the common code of sportsmanship dictates that the superior party adjust his style, usually by seeking to throw his opponent from the ring per the grapple."

By the time the Senator was done talking, the matches had begun. One obviously mismatched fight between Apollo students ended in seconds, with a lightweight novice hurled from the ring by his huge opponent. Others dragged on a few minutes, and one pair grappled semi-effectually for almost five minutes before one kicked the other unconscious. "Is it just me," Vixen said, "or do they all stink?"

"What do you mean?" Delly said. "Didn't you see how hard those two were fighting?"

"Exactly," Thread said with a snort. "I don't know Pankration, but I've taught hand-to-hand. If two people who know what they're doing and really mean business go at it, one of them will be on the floor in the time it would take most people to notice there's a fight."

"It is considered bad form for two pankratiasts to finish that quickly," the Senator said. "Usually, they make several passes before either attempts decisive combat, which offers a more balanced test of skill as well as a better show. Still, you are right, this is a beginner's round, and even for that, the talent is decidedly poor. Now, because there are more than the standard 144 pankratiasts, there will be a challenge match..."

Six more fighters were called in to fight the victors, and none of them were markedly better, unless it was one, introduced as Horace, who faced off against the monster who had thrown his first opponent. Two passes by the challenger, also from Apollo and far from a lightweight himself, made it painfully clear that the victor was slow and quite deficient in skill. One more feint drew a lumbering charge from the defender, straight into a kick that laid him out at the challenger's mercy. Three more challengers also displaced the victors, but their victories were clearly owed to nothing more than exhaustion on their opponents' parts.

"Now, the double bye match..." The bottom two rings were left empty, as the victors were called to challenge those on either side of the cage. On the left, Horace easily defeated the defender. On the right a defender from the Odair school, the sole survivor of the original twelve, defeated the victor after a minute of brutal pummeling. Then two rested challengers were called down from the upper rings. The left defender had no great difficulry defeating a battered middleweight, while the Odair student was wrestled to the ground after taking a brutal kick to the abdomen that made him cough blood. Two angels loaded the defeated Odair student onto a hoverplatform for quick transport to the hospital.

"And the cage finale." Even the Senator was dispirited as the last two took to the cage. Horace, clearly the strongest of the two by far and still inferior to the would-be rival bound for the hospital, let his opponent make two desultory passes before grabbing him and slamming him down for a quick but brutal pin. The Senator sighed and shook his head.

"It is the Century Academy, and especially the Apollo school," he said. "Every year, they bring a handful of genuinely exceptional athletes and scores who can barely be called amateurs. They will offer explanations, that do not seem out of reason: They are a very large Academy, with especially liberal admissions policies. Inevitably, their pool of athletes will be uneven. But what they are really doing is deliberately diluting the talent pool, to inflate the scores of the worthy competitors. It should have been dealt with decades ago, but other Academies like the easy victories, and certain parties are very good at making quiet arrangements... Ah, but I have said enough. The next round will be better."

By an improbable fluke, the opening of the second round saw the entry of Cato, obviously among the very best at the Arena. His exceptionally unworthy opponent, also from Century, raised his hands for grappling, which might as well have been a white flag of surrender. The huge young man responded by slapping his quivering schoolmate too senseless to signal surrender, and broke his arm before the judges could order a halt. Cato easily bested every subsequent opponent in the round, and more than one pankratiast conveniently fell out of the ring before coming up to face him.

At the challenge match of the fourth round, Peeta was called, by his stage name Ajax. Delly squealed and clapped, and the Senator pushed a button to sound a fanfare. Peeta made one pass, and then caught his opponent in a chokehold that forced the defender to gesture surrender. "Hm," the Senator said, checking names on a tablet. He pointed to a defender in the upper ring who had already thrown his challenger from the ring. "That young man is the same pankratiast who eliminated Peeta in the grapple. It appears that there could be a rematch."

Peeta plowed through the competition without any particular effort. He won the bye match by hurling the reserve over the barrier, which at least got him breathing heavily. He took a long look at the Maidens' Box as he ascended to the cage. He couldn't see a thing inside, but the odds were he would lock eyes with some current or prospective sponsor. As it happened, his eyes lingered on Delly, who almost fell over. At the top, he assumed a fighting stance, facing the moderately decent pankratiast he had chosen to lose the grapple to. He threw his foe twice against the bars of the cage, waiting for the foe to recover his wits and wind before he moved in and pinned him to become Victor.

**Another note: While Pankration was an actual Greco-Roman sport (with some self-described practitioners in the present), the portrayal here should by all means be considered my own invention. (One detail that is** **historically authentic is the "bye" match.) Judging from what information is available, actual Pankration would have been less organized and probably more brutal than this! **


	22. Cage Round

After twelve rounds of pankration, twelve Victors were ready to fight. By all estimations, the most formidable of them all was Cato, competing under his own name, from the Apollo School of Century Academy. Four other victors came from Century, of whom Cato's schoolmate Ion was actually good. The Odair School had four victors, all good to very good. A Victor known as Anteus came from Enobaria's school in the Peoples' Academy. Finally, there were Thresh and Peeta, aka Atlas and Ajax, from Johanna's tiny school.

Before the Championship, the Victors were given time to recuperate. A troop of miniature elephants, about the size of pigs, came out to perform. "Those are genetically engineered dwarf elephants," Senator Carter told his guests. "Not full-grown, actually. The adults are about twice as big, and far more temperamental." They were followed up by a mock-duel between Seeder and Johanna, the latter as a wood nymph that looked more Celtic than Classical. The fight of the goddesses was down to hair-pulling when a thunderbolt sounded, a cue to start the Champion round, which was to be fought one match at a time in the cage.

The first up was Peeta, against the pitiful Horace. Peeta moved in for a leisurely wrestle. He drew back in time to dodge an unexpected kick aimed at his belly. Horace was already coming at him, swinging his arm in a backhanded chop. All pankratiasts fought with weights in their cesti, ranging from stones to metal studs, and the judges always carefully reviewed the contents of a combatant's gloves. But attention always focused on the knuckles, and so it had been easy for Horace to slip by a sharpened buckle at his wrist, now aimed at Peeta's throat. Peeta caught hold of Horace's arm, just in time to deflect the attack, though the buckle still sliced across his cheek.

Horace was clearly more capable than he had let himself appear, but not by much. Peeta simply absorbed a fist to the jaw, and he did not give Horace the chance to make another effective blow. He went into a fast flurry of punches that seemed like a blind frenzy to the spectators, finishing with a kick in the backside. Another fighter was promptly called to face Peeta, the very best from the Odair School. Peeta was better. At his second victory, Peeta was relieved.

The next match was between Ion and a pankratiast dubbed Valerius from another school within Century Academy. After Cato and Ion, Valerius was least mediocre of the Centurions who had eked their way to victory. Any nominal fraternity meant nothing in the ring, as Ion brutally pummeled his opponent, landing a final kick to the belly just as his foe was raising a hand to signal surrender. Ion was then challenged by Anteus. The challenger was named for a mythical titan who sprang up after every fall, and he had swept a late round through stamina worthy of his namesake. Ion tried to reenact the tale of Hercules' victory over the Titan by bending his stocky foe across his back.. But Ion forgot to account for the cage. Anteus hooked his knees around the bars and used the leverage to slam Ion senseless.

The next match was a grueling fight between two worthy Odair students that only paved the way for an easy victory for Thresh. Cato defeated the last Odair Victor, and the "challenge" from the only other remaining Centurion might as well have been a breather. It was time for the finale, which opened with a match between Peeta and Anteus. Peeta had been careful to study his sturdy and cunning adversary, and had already decided on his best strategy. As soon as the bell sounded, he drew back to the bars and then dropped to a crouch. He ignored several feints, and when Anteus finally scuttled for him, he brought both hands down for a stunning blow to the back of his opponent's head.

Peeta vacated the cage again, and Thresh and Cato faced each other. Cato won a quick victory by driving Thresh to the bars with rapid-fire kicks. Peeta was called. He took one glance at the balcony, to see Johanna shaking her head. He put up his fists, and then rolled with a punch that slammed him against the bars. He made a fighting retreat, at one point swinging from the bars to escape Cato's lunge. When he was about to go from crouching to falling over, he saw an opening for a roundhouse kick, and took it. Cato fell even as he plowed forward, slamming into the bars with such force that he knocked himself unconscious. Peeta knew at once that Cato had thrown the fight.

There was one final show. The gladiatrices were called forth to play a little drama, introduced as "The Judgment of Paris". Peeta was called in to play the hero's part, wearing a domino mask in place of his hood and a toga that covered theworst of his bruises. He knew the story, about a hero (really a spineless whimp) asked to choose which of three godesses was fairest. The platform was rather more crowded, with six goddesses arayed around the edges: Three were the gladiatrices, plus Seeder as Minerva, Johanna as a forest nymph, and one more that could only be meant to be Venus. The last "goddess" was clearly nervous, and her costume seemed have been prepared in haste. She wore a plain white dress, and a veil hid her face. The other goddess made token displays. When Johanna was up, he moved in closer. "You know what to do," she whispered.

Peeta turned to the last of the goddesses. "Venus" only stood there, visibly quivering. He stepped closer, and in one motion, he swept back her veil and kissed her. "Hi, Peeta," Delly said.

Peeta and Delly boarded a cloud that carried them to an open balcony in the Maidens' Box, while the crowd cheered and the goddesses hissed. Johanna discretely patted Peeta on the back. As an extra touch, Peeta and Delly were married on the spot by a priest of Janus on hand for the occasion. The goddesses were ferried to the balcony to meet the other Victors. While the audience filed out, the men and women mingled and began to exit. Peeta carried Delly away, Cato walked off with Glimmer and Enya under either arm and an entourage of Centurions in tow, and Katniss was escorted away by Finnick Odair.

Peeta got a few paces down the hall before he set Delly down. "Oh, are you okay?" she fretted. "I'm so sorry... I've gotten so fat..." He kissed her.

"You're fine," he said. "I just spent all afternoon beating the crap out of guys and getting the crap beaten out of me. I'm not exactly going to go straight to the honeymoon."

"Oh, Peeta, we're finally married," Delly said. She pulled him in tight, kissing him passionately. "This is going to be such a long night... I mean, if you're up to it."

"I'm sure I can rise to the occasion," he said. He held her tightly, allowing her to burrow her lips into his shoulder. He looked past her golden locks to see Johanna go by, carried on Anteus' back. As their eyes met, she mouthed words: _Get. Out. Of here._

**Another after note: I thought I'd mention my so-far semi-abortive project "Hercules In A Yugo". What material I have typed up is posted as a Greek mythology fan fic. I consider it the funniest stuff I've written, and one of the high points was a version of Hercules' duel with Anteus. **


	23. First Night

The Feast to celebrate the Arena's opening day was held in a huge circular courtyard at the north end of the complex. A giant ornamental fountain filled half the courtyard's diameter, big enough for the guests to cruise around the pool in miniature paddle boats. An elephant about the size of a donkey was on hand to give the guests rides around the garden. Tables of lavish food (not to mention generous quantities of drink) and dining tables for select guests were set up under the porticoes that ringed the courtyard, and more dining tables and still more food were set up around two great swimming pools on either side. Already, the arrangements were going awry. Drunken guests were chasing the fish and tiny waterfowl in the fountain. Johanna (unclothed, naturally) gave an eerie war cry as she rammed her paddleboat into the craft of a wealthy Patron. Her rival vomited and then pitched overboard, capsizing the craft. Then the elephant, which had gotten hold of some of the drink, dived into the pool and started gobbling waterfowl. None of this upset the other partygoers, who continued to eat and slip up and down stairwells that led to the private baths underground.

"Boy howdy, are we out of our league," Asher said as he trudged along the side of the pond. From the nearest portico, a number of people were giving him dark looks and counted their supplies of less perishable foods. He pointed down at a big coi swimming in the pool. "See that? That's us. We're here because we amuse them, and they think it's extra fun to let us feel like we're at home. But we aren't."

"That's what I've been saying all afternoon," Romulus Thread muttered. "At least my boy Darius listened..." Suddenly, he froze. A rather slight man with flowing white hair was approaching. Asher looked puzzled for a moment, and then he swore, not quietly.

"Mr. Asher Despatrin, pardon me for the surprise, and I will assume you are talking about your work," the old man said. "But what excuse do you have, Captain Thread, for not having a kind word to greet an old friend... or your President?"

"Forgive me, Sir!" Thread bowed, with his hand at the hilt of his sword, a gesture going back to past times when Peacekeepers had offered to slay themselves at their superiors' command.

"Cornelius, please!" President Snow shook Thread's hand. "I owe that much to my old commander!" He extended his hand to Asher, and the sewer rat made a show of checking his own hand before returning the gesture. "And would this be Mr. Gale Hawthorne? My congratulations to both of you on your union. May fortune be in your favor."

Gale shook, and Vixen curtsied and accepted a kiss on the cheek. "Word does get around fast," Gale said.

"I would not be where I am today if I did not find out what is worth knowing," Snow said with a smile. "The Senator is busy ar the moment, but he wanted you to know that you have been invited to a private dining table with Katniss Everdeen, Delia Cartwright and Peeta Mellark."

"I should have checked his hand," Asher muttered. He patted his well-stuffed tote."I'm catching the transport home. Annie's waiting, and she does get nervous after dark. Have fun. Or don't."

As a matter of courtesy, Peeta and Delly were on hand for the dinner. Then his eyes found Katniss, sitting at his own table, and he mustered a short speech. At the finish, Delly nudged him, and he leaned down for her to whisper in his ear. "My wife would like to go now." They left, with no more than a few knowing smiles.

With Peeta gone, attention shifted decisively to the gladiatrices, especially Katniss. She managed a good front, but all the while she thought of Seeder's orders to her:

"_Do not let any man have you tonight. Anyone can see you are not __that__ kind of lady._ _But do not let yourself seem indifferent to any man who shows interest. If you must say `no', be gentle and leave him hope for another night. Some will persist, and then I will tell you what to do."_

She noticed Gale looking intently at Enya, and her teammate coolly eying Gale and Vixen, and decided to make introductions. "Gale, this is..."

She stopped herself from introducing Enya by her real name. But before she could say "Minerva", Gale said, "Enya." Practically everything about the face was different to some degree, but he was sure this was the same woman who had solicited him in the ghetto.

Enya just smiled back. "Word does get around," she said. "And this would be_ the_ Gale Hawthorne."

"Gale," Vixen whispered in her groom's ear, "let's go home." As the couple got up, Glimmer made a more discrete departure, down the stairs to a bath chamber with Horace and Valerius. Katniss made a point of keeping her eyes on Gale and Vixen. As Katniss watched Gale leave, she felt envy for him. She found, for some reason, that she envied Vixen more.

* * *

Peacekeeper Darius reclined in bed, his eyes barely open. "I didn't think the next inspection was until tomorrow," Madge said. She stood in front of a mirror, as free of clothes as she was during the morning strip searches.

The soldier chuckled. "Call it a surprise inspection..." He made a move to rise, but Madge dived back into bed, They giggled, kissed and squirmed about under the covers. He turned her around and started nuzzling between her shoulder blades. As he did, he remembered...

"You accepted an assignment: Look for a way to access that building, and the secrests inside. By your own admission, you have so far failed even to find an opportunity to attempt it. We trust that your intention is to use your liaison as a means to accomplish your mission, and we are giving you leeway. But if we do not see progress, soon, there will be consequences, for both of you."

"My lady... my lovely... my songbird," he murmured, "I love you. The moment I saw you leave the train, I loved you, more than my country which I love more than my life. I would have given up all the treasures of Panem for one hour with you. I need you to know that. But it broke my heart to worry what they might do or make you do inside."

Madge turned around. "Why would you worry?" she said, sounding genuinely puzzled. "And why wouldn't you know what happens, in a building you guard? But I suppose they are secretive, though I can never see why. All we do is handle papers. I work in the very heart of their building, and I hardly hear a word... It is the Avoces. Most of my job is to copy things I do not understand, file papers I will never read, and destroy what they do not wish to keep. Actually, I mostly just destroy paper. It does seem a bit odd."

Darius rolled on top of Madge and kissed her. "Oh, my songbird, thank you for taking away my fear!" he said. "But please, let us speak of it no more- not here! Sing to me, my mockingjay!" He enfolded her, and there was no more talk of treasure or secrets or papers, or indeed much talking at all.

* * *

Gale gave Vixen an excruciating parting kiss at the door to his room. "Just think," he said, "in a few days, we can have our own bed." He started to chew thoughtfully on her nose. "You're my Foxy Girl. You are my one and only, and I'm your only boy."

"Okay, that's weird," she said. "What about if you're dead?" Vixen said. Gale pulled back.

"If I'm gone," Gale said, "I would want you to do whatever made you happy."

"You'd be too dead to stop me, wouldn't you?" Vixen said. "Then what if I'm the one gone?"

""Never happen," Gale said. He gave a hint of a smile "I'll be gone way before you."

"Seriously, Gale," Vixen said. "The pillow talk is always great for me. But we're married now."

"I am serious," Gale said. "I always believed, one man should have one woman. You're my first, and you're my one and only."

"Why?" Vixen said. "You don't love me, you know I don't love you, and we both know that's never going to change. So why should I tie you down?"

"Foxy, do you remember what you told me, about how I was the only guy who ever noticed you?" Vixen nodded. "Well, I'm pretty sure you're the first girl who ever liked me."

"That's a crock o' shit, Gale," Vixen replied.

"Is it, Foxy?" Gale said. "Sure, girls look at me. But I know the looks aren't me, and I know I didn't always look like this. I had to come a damn long way to look like this. It's funny, really. Girls always complain about guys only being interested in looks. But from where I sit, I don't see the difference. Girls can say they like me, they love me, they want me, but all I could ever think was, _really?_ The only girl I could have believed was the one who never said it, and even with her, I could tell there were things she didn't even want to understand. Then you came to me, and that was the first time I was sure, somebody could see who I really was."

"That's sweet," Vixen said. She kissed him. "You know what I see in you, Gale? I see a man who's looking for something to fight for. Probably die for, too. I can't say I relate, but I get it. I never want to fight myself, but I do believe there's things worth fighting for. I want that to be my gift to you." Then she handed him a sheet of paper from her little notepad, which was her token from home.

Only the bunkmate from Three seemed to notice Gale as he stepped inside. He climbed up to his bed and pulled a gauzy curtain (a minor privacy measure) and read the note by a light he used at work. It was a short but graphic account of their first trip behind the maintenance shed. His face reddened, and his brow furrowed. He flipped over the note, and took a look at the blank, unlined reverse side. He turned out the light. After a moment, he turned the light around, and pushed a button that activated a second lamp- a black light they used to check for scorpions. Under the invisible ultraviolet radiation, the reverse side luminesced. It was a map, like nothing he had seen in his life, and the legend read: PANEM.

**One more after note: I have been adhering to a maximum length of two pages per chapter. I decided to try going longer, beginning with this chapter, which actually started out short before I filled it out with a couple extra scenes I had been debating what to do with.**


	24. Whacking Day

The morning after their wedding night, Gale and Vixen were called in for the 0500 shift. Marvel joined them, badly hung over, while Asher was waiting with a grin on his face. "You didn't think they were going to go easy on you, did you?" Asher said. "Oh, no. In this business, the second day of Demonstrations is the busiest day of the year. All those people going up to Five, eating, shitting, puking, maybe at the same time... and when it all gets down here, the critters come out for their own feast. As we say in this business, the shit has hit the fan, but we make the most of it: When the critters come out to play, we have a Whacking Day."

"First off, it's time to get to know a little more about your enemy," Asher said. He stopped in front of a mounted creature resembling nothing so much as a gigantic louse. Its shield-like body was as wide as a manhole cover placed behind it. The legs and pincers were realatively short but clearly powerful, anchored in a humpbacked thorax that overhung the head. "First up, the crabs. You've seen 'em before, and if you got the `health and hygiene' lecture, you know how these things got their name. This is the largest specimen ever captured alive, but the odds are against seeing a specimen half this size in the wild. But don't judge them by their side. The smaller they are, the more they stick together. A swarm of little guys riled up is a hundred times more dangerous than one of the monsters."

He showed a ventral view of a smaller but still strikingly big specimen, cut open for dissection. "Now, I'm going to tell you a dirty secret: The crabs were gengineered by the Capitol and released 'bout a hundred years ago as `organic pest control'. They weren't supposed to breed in the wild, and the Capitol thought they had a perfect measure to prevent it: They only released females! But it turned out, these ladies didn't have to stay ladies. The ones that change will look like a regular subadult, except that one claw will be really big. There's a one-quad reward for the body of a male."

He led them to a cage with a very large white rat inside. "Now this here is Socrates, pun probably intended," he said. Gale leaned in for a closer look, and saw that this was an odd vermin indeed, with a distinct bulge in the upper skull that hinted at intelligence. The impression of intellect was strengthened when the rat looked at him and stroked its whiskers with one paw. "Socrates here is four pounds, 13.5 ounces, not as big as some but above average, and has lived for ten years in captivity. He's definitely a sewer rat, but, as I think Gale has noticed, he isn't exactly like them. He's a rat king.

"The king rats are definitely no accident. They're always white, and usually male, because their genes are recessive. What the scientists think happened is that back in the Ancients' times, something like the kings were gengineered as some kind of experiment. Who knows, they could have been meant as pets. Some of them escaped, and interbred with what was then a local subspecies of _Rattus norvegicus,_ creating a new species_ Rattus cloacis. _The hybrids are brighter than the average rat, but dimbulbs compared to the originals. But about one rat in fifty is a throwback to the ancestral stock. They're not only smart, they seem to lead the other rats. The scientists think the kings mostly just give a little extra focus to the instincts the rats already have. But if you've seen a thousand rats break out of a holding tank with a whitey in the lead, it's six of one, half-dozen of the other."

He led the way into another room, from which various cries should be heard. "Fortunately, we have our own critters to do the hard work for us," Asher said. The room held cages with an assortment of animals, mainly an assortment of dogs. Many had indications of genetic modification, and several were obviously Muttations. "We mainly use old-fashioned dogs," he said. "We have three breeds, nippers, bulldachs and rottmaulers. They're trained to work together, so their strengths and weaknesses complement each other." Asher pointed to one that looked like a black hound with front legs shorter than the back. On examination, the wedge-like face looked less like a dog than a possum. "We call these lowriders, and they give us all the creeps. They're true Muttations, a hybrid of DNA from several species. They can run, and jump, on two legs or four, and they're smart. If you see them coming, go the other way, but don't run." The creature stood up with unsettling ease, tall enough to look Vixen in the eye, and pressed a dextrous paw with an opposable thumb against the glass.

He showed them more Muttations: a large monkey, a long-necked otter, a pink wading bird with a rapier-like beak, and what looked like golden-furred squirrels. "These are our main crabbers," he said. "The otters are okay, the rest you steer clear of, especially the squirrel things. They're actually gengineered from shrews, and they hunt in packs. If one is threatened, or thinks it sees a good meal, it sprays something horrid, and the others come running."

He waved at a number of smaller tanks, mainly holding reptiles, insects and a large worm with legs. "All of these are `flagged friendlies'," he said. "About every other year, they try introducing a gengineered critter that's supposed to thin out the others. Usually, they die out, once in a while they turn into pests themselves like the crabs, but these are all ones that have established self-sustaining populations."

He led them behind a black curtain. "Then there's this... the buttface. They say they have to keep these guys in the dark because they can't stand visible light," Asher said. "This is what happens when you hit 'em with a black light..." He pushed a button, and an ethereal shape suddenly lit up in the darkness. "That's flourescence coming off its skin from exposure to ultraviolet light. They say it doesn't hurt them, but I'm pretty sure this pisses 'em off... Trust me, they deserve it."

The shape darted up the far side of the glass holding tank. It looked to be about three feet long. It looked somewhat like a house centipede crossed with a frog, and like the former it was very hard to tell which end was which. At both ends of the elongate body, there were two bowed legs and a fan of feathery feelers between them, evidently its sense organs. The flexibility of its four limbs as it ran up the wall and onto the ceiling made Gale wonder if they were looking at the top or bottom. Then it did a back flip, and he had a perfect view of a yawning maw and small cloaca in its underbelly. It slammed into the glass, slashing with claws and stinging spurs on its webbed feet and snapping a ring of saw-edged plates that lined its mouth.

"This is a juvenile," Asher said. "They don't have eyes, but they say those antennae things can detect smells, sound, vibrations, heat and even electric currents. They can climb faster than a man can run, turn around at a full run on a cent piece, and detect a rat at one hundred yards. They're supposed to be conditioned to back off from our transponders, but don't count on it. Where they go in, we pull out."

He led them, finally, to the armory where they stored weapons occasionally brought out for critter control. The walls held a selection of air rifles, firearms, and blunt instruments improvised from pipes. "Our work, officially, is containment and clean-up," he said. "But it's not always that simple, and even when it is, it can be plenty hairy. Mostly, we'll be using bludgeons, which is why it's Whacking Day. There's extra money for any critters you can take alive, including an unofficial but very lucrative pool for biggest rat."

He lowered his voice. "Now, there's one more thing I have to tell you. It's a matter of life and death. There's one creature in the sewers more dangerous than all the others combined. It's... sewer penguins." Gale looked befuddled. "That's right. They didn't all die when the ice caps melted. These penguins adapted to live underground. They're seven feet tall, pure white, with no eyes..."

"You're full of shit," Vixen said. She looked at Gale. "It's just a tall tale. If he didn't make it up, somebody else did."

"Probably," Asher said, "but you can't be too careful, can you? And now that I think about it, there is one more thing you should know. The words to... the Whacking Song!"

As the truck drove along, singing echoed through the Transfer:

"Get your gun and pipe and bat,

And don't forget to wear your hard hat!

What can you say? It's Whacking Day!

"There's roach and cat and crab and rat,

Things that go crunch and things that go splat!

What can you say? It's Whacking Day!

"So club and shoot and stomp them flat,

Save the Arena a trophy rat!

What can you say? It's Whacking Day!

"Go home early and if you don't want a spat,

Better wipe your feet on the welcome mat!

What can you say? It's Whacking Day!"


	25. History Lesson

The second day of Demonstrations Week was always the mildest, in large part to allow the participants and patrons to recuperate from the opening night festivities. For Seeder's gladiatrices, the day's activities were limited to a mid-day appearance at the Neptune. At 600 yards wide and 100 across, it was the third largest Arena in the City, and considered by many to be the most prestigious. It was also the first Arena to boast that its ring could be flooded to create a simulated sea for staged naval battles. It could and did host boat races and very real and deadly combat between men and aquatic Muttations. But such spectacles would wait for a busier day.

Seeder and her gladiatrices were in the Maidens' Box, along with Johanna, Enobaria and a rather slight, dark-haired young woman. Enobaria was introduced as Venus, but she was instantly recognizeable by the glint of golden teeth behind a diaphanous veil. Her face was about the only thing that was covered by her scanty costume. She took a closer look at the other girl, introduced as Bellona Goddess of War, who wore a scarlet leather dress and a domino-style mask that did little to hide her truly distinctive features. Katniss had a strong sense of deja vu, and after a moment she placed the face: She was Clove, the other leading Tribute from Two. Right about the moment that recognition dawned, Clove gave a smile that made Katniss uncomfortable.

Glimmer and Enya were comparing tokens that were arriving at regular intervals. Katniss had a table full that she still hadn't touched. "Look, Cato sent me flowers," Enya said.

"He sent me pearls," Glimmer countered, holding up a necklace.

"They're artificial," Clove said casually.

"Quiet," Katniss said. "I want to hear this."

"Why?" Glimmer said. "It's only a history show."

"The history shows can be fun," Enya said. "I always like the ones about the Invasion. That will probably wait until Friday."

The Arena had been transformed into a fantastic miniature city on a verdant plain, with a stylized likeness of the Citadel more than a hundred feet tall in the center. Screens showed the image of Old Panem, spanning from ocean to ocean. "In the days that were ancient before the Ancients, men worshipped the Old Gods. In the days of the Ancients, men became as gods. They built the land of Old Panem, and the greatest of all cities to rule it. They took unto themselves all the Powers of heaven and Earth. They made the forces of nature subject to their whims. They transmuted precious metals from bare earth, and drew limitless power from the Fundamental Force of the universe. But they forgot that mortal men, however powerful, will always be fallible. Perhaps they neglected to use their powers. Perhaps they did, and miscalculated the consequences. Perhaps the true Powers grew outraged at their arrogance. In any case, even the Ancients could not withstand THE CATACLYSM!"

The Arena itself shook convincingly as the plain quaked. The beautiful spires crumbled, great fissures opened in the plain, and surging waters flooded the ring. When the flood receded, the Citadel was still standing, though several spires had toppled. "After the Cataclysm came Chaos. Those who survived found themselves at war with unbridled nature and each other, and still the seas rose up to drown them. Humanity was pressed to the edge of extinction. Then, by fate and courage, fourteen chiefs made a pact to assemble their fleets to seek out the Great City."

A swarm of miniature aircraft came floating in from the stands, led by fourteen ornate dirigibles that were themselves twenty feet long. "They loaded their airships with their families, their servants and their soldiers, and crossed the great oceans. They crisscrossed the lands of Old Panem, passing over vast seas, immense mountains, ageless forests and limitless desert, unitil at last, they sighted the spire of the Great City. Together, the chiefs conquered the Valley in which it stood. Thirteen of the chiefs made a pact to rebuild the city and make a new Panem, with the great chief Scipio as their elected commander in chief. But one chief chose to depart, and seek new lands to conquer." The largest of the dirigibles sailed away, followed by scores of the little planes.

Katniss nodded along. Even in Twelve, they knew the tale, told in the words to the Valley Song that played as the airships descended. "So they found a city," Katniss said to herself. "But how did they know it was the City? How did they know the Great City even existed? And if the City was in ruins, _who did they conquer?_"

"Who cares?" Glimmer said. "We're up."

"Then Scipio took command of the twelve remaining chiefs, and under his guidance, they rebuilt the city, and each built a great House of the Capitol and conquered the wild and lawless lands around them: The Seas of the west , the Desert of the South, the Forests of the North, the Plains and Mountains of the east and the Peninsula beyond."

The Arena transformed into an island of sand amid silt-tinged water, and the gladiatrices were called upon for symbolic battles to represent the conquest of the Territories. Enya was called first, to face a huge-eyed goblin she handily decapitated. Clove appeared as a net fighter in a visored helmet, to snare and spear a sea monster (actually an amphibious catfish). Glimmer fought an anonymous tough dressed as a masked shaman of the semi-legendary desert savages. He was still doing his rain dance when Glimmer hit him in the crotch with the haft of her spear. Johanna was summoned to fight an ape creature. She came in looking irritably hung-over. She threw a hatchet straightaway, which Katniss knew was off-script, but missed the ape by almost a yard. She then drew a full-sized axe, with a low cry that was more weary than warlike, and decapitated the beast.

Katniss came up against the most bizarre of the Games fodder, a man with an oversized lion's head, complete with mane. It was obviously some performer in a suit, though the gaping jaws would have been convincing if the whole had not been so ridiculous. While the performer postured and self-evidently struggled to keep from falling over under the weight of his own "head", Katniss puzzled over what he was supposed to be. After a few moments, she realized that the ridiculous apparition was supposed to be the Lion Men of the mountains. Even back in Twelve, the memory of them was so dim that they were no more than legend, and even per the legends, they were nothing more than crazy men who dressed up in cougar pelt, apparently to absorb the big cat's supposed strength and savagery. Katniss unfolded her bow and emptied her entire quiver into the ludicrous head. The performer gave a mournful roar and clutched his head as he toppled, which was probably necessary to keep it from falling off.

Katniss, Glimmer and Enya came out together to fight two mounted horsemen intended to represent the Warlords of the Plains. They clearly knew horses, but not combat, and one with the markings of a chief had a lame foot. Glimmer shot him off his mount, and his feeble screech was obviously not fake. Katniss put her arrow through the throat of the other horseman's mount. Rather than fight, he ran for it, quite pointlessly. Katniss glanced sidelong at her partners. Enya was smiling at the lame horseman as he pled for his life, and Glimmer shouldered her bow in favor of her spear. Obviously, they meant to force Katniss's hand. She put a bolt in his leg, and he collapsed screaming in the shallows, at about the same moment Enya and Glimmer heeded the cries of the audience and simultaneously ran the lame horseman through. Katniss turned from the bloodshed in time to see two half-submerged shapes cruising for the remaining horseman. She drew another bolt for a kill shot... too late.

The Arena attendants were still gathering up the last body parts as Clove and Enobaria took positions for the real contest. The sight of Enobaria did a good deal to quiet the audience. As she walked, her baubles expanded into armor, with a jeweled tiara transforming into a helmet. Even so, her costume left less than 10% to the imagination. Katniss paid more attention to her weapon. It was a morningstar, to match the planet Venus, chrome-plated and polished bright enough to signal passing hovercraft. The sun shone so brightly off the double-handed mace that it was hard to get a good look at the thing. Still, it didn't take Katniss long to see what she needed to see. Some maces were made for flash, and others were made for business, and you could always tell the difference from the spikes. These were stout and pyramidal, perfect for absorbing as well as applying force. This was built for business.

Clove took to Enobaria's side, now wearing a visored helmet and carrying a shield and a large, forward-curving knife. They faced off against Seeder, who was naked save for an open coat, a loin cloth and a top hat, the garb of the storied dokhobors supposed to have ruled the Peninsula that was now Eleven. At her command, Chaff and Thresh burst from the ground, made up as pale, moderately decomposed zombies. Thresh carried a scythe, and Chaff was armed with a sickle-flail combination known as a kusarigama. Clove went into action, using her shield to intercept a multibladed throwing knife that Seeder hurled at Enobaria and then deflect Chaff's chain from her mentor's ankles. She used her knife to lop off Chaff's (prosthetic) hand, and then retreated when the lively severed member got a hold on her visor.

Enobaria closed for a brutal brawl with the zombies. All three combatants quickly "lost" their weapons, and though Enobaria defended herself well with powerful (and crowd-pleasing) kicks, Thresh and Chaff inevitably got the upper hand. Then Clove charged Seeder, felling her with a blow from her shield. When Seeder dropped, the two zombies immediately fell to the ground, acting as lifeless as they looked. "Now, for the challenge match," the announcer intoned. "The Goddesses of Love and War shall choose a rival to do battle. Venus chooses..." Enobaria surveyed the five assembled goddesses, and pointed. "Proserpine, Queen of Hell!"


	26. The Elephant In The Sewer

The sewer was alive with a constant chorus of cries of pain, death and anger, rising and falling but never wholly ceasing. Caged dogs yapped and howled, and a pair of lowriders cackled to each other. All the dogs howled at once as a light truck drove by with a covered cage. "That would be the butt-face," Asher said. "Never seen one out this early before."

Gale and Vixen held hands as they stepped down from the truck. Marvel gave a woozy, red-eyed glare. "Great, you're in love," he said. "Go ahead and rub everybody's noses in it."

"Whoa," Vixen said, "we've never been in love. Right, Gale?" He nodded.

They descended into the Inspection tunnel. Vixen raised her boot at the sight of a mantis-like insect almost a foot long. The insect made a decidedly sinister clicking sound, raising its arms and spreading its mandibles in a combat stance. "Hold it!" Asher said. "That's a stick-mantis; it's a flagged friendly, though that might change if their numbers don't level off." The bug gave a last defiant chatter and skittered away.

Gale was already reading their orders on his tablet. "All right, it looks like they want a check of a flagged junction. It says mixed infestation... rats, multiple crusties, and a possible exotic. There's another flag of multiple canine casualties." He opened a hatch, and a wiry black terror came leaping straight for his mask. He cried out in alarm, clawing at the creature ineffectually until Asher plucked it off.

"What you have here is a juvenile _Felis ferale_s," Asher said. It was the semi-scientific name for stray cat. He hoisted the pitiful kitten by the scruff of its neck. "Looks like he was rarin' to go anywhere but here. Let's see what the hurry was about..."

He dropped a flare down the hole, and then held up the cat. "No," Gale said. He took the cat away and handed it to Vixen. "We got crabs." The flare revealed half a dozen of the creatures below. They were big, and they were feeding on several dead dogs. "Those would be the `canine casualties'... Forget multiples, this is the better part of a pack! There's a nipper, two dachs and a rott, and... is that a lowrider?"

"Half of one," Asher said. "You know, something doesn't feel right about this..."

"You were the one who wanted to drop the cat," Vixen said. She hugged the scrawny little thing, which purred for her and then hissed at Asher.

Asher shook his head. "I mean, this isn't normal," he said. "Normally, the bigger crabs are, the more they spread out. You never see this many this size in one place, unless there's food to attract them. And there's no way they could have taken out all these dogs. Even little nippers take out crabs all the time, and lowriders make them a specialty. Something got to these dogs ahead of the crabs."

"All right," Gale said, "I'll go check it out." Without another word, he climbed down the ladder, armed with a hatchet.

"Don't get your nuts chewed off," Vixen called after him. "I might want them later." Gale had halted halfway. He started at a contralto scream from down the pipeline. The crabs began sculling away, and the sewer echoed with the skirling cries of rats beating a retreat.

"Get up here!" Asher shouted. "Don't make it two Hawthornes at the shrine!" Gale reached for a rung to climb up. Then he heard another sound. He scrambled down the ladder and jumped down, sinking into water up to his waist. The biggest of the crabs swam at him, snapping its stinging mandibles. He swung the hatchet underhand, to smash the tiny head. Then he waded toward a small, open pipe. Two eyes shone by the light of his lamp, belonging to a tiny, whimpering nipper, not much bigger than a cat or even some of the rats.

"Gale!" Vixen screeched, "get up here now, or I'll- Just get up here!"

"Come here, boy," he said. He struggled to climb up another pipe to the open train. The nipper growled, baring its teeth. Another scream sounded, closer. He could hear a sloshing sound. Something was coming, and it was big. He scrambled back down, but took one last pleading look up. "Jump!" he shouted, stretching out his arms. "Jump, you son of a bitch!"

Vixen screamed profanity down the manhole. "You know, you might have something better to say," Asher said.

Vixen took one searing look at him, then leaned over the manhole and shouted, "Gale! I need you, you shithead!"

Gale clambered up the ladder, with the nipper barking from his tool bag. A thunderous pounding echoed through the sewers. "Vixen!" he shouted. Vixen, I think I-" Asher grabbed his arm and jerked him up, then Marvel caught his other arm, and together, they pulled him up. He was scarcely out ot the manhole before something hit the ladder with a clang, tearing it right out of its moorings. There was a loud splosh as something collapsed.

"So," Marvel said, "what were you going to say?"

Gale looked into Vixen's cool eyes. "I saw it," he said. "I was going to say, I think... I think it's an _elephant_."

There was a moment of silence before Marvel said the obvious: "How does an elephant get in a sewer?"

"It's a little one, not a lot bigger than the ones we saw in the arena," Gale said. "The Senator said those were babies. The one I saw looked as big as a horse, and it had tusks. It could have gotten down here and gotten bigger, like a ship in a bottle... Do many of them get sold as pets?"

"Enough to be a major problem," Asher said. "The miniphants are supposed to be owned only by licensed handlers, but the handlers themselves aren't above selling them off when they get too big to be cute. Never heard of one down here before. Let's just have a look shall we?" He leaned down into the manhole cover. "Yup, it's a bull. Most of the ones that get sold are male, because even people who know what they're doing can't really control them, even when... Yeah, that figures. When it shits, it pours. See that waxy patch behind the eye? That means it's in musth- basically horny plus homicidal to the power of ten."

"There's something else," Gale said. "There's all that red, not just on the tusks but all around the mouth... I think it's been eating meat."

"They'll do that, if they're hungry enough," Asher affirmed. "Only thing to do is pull out, and let animal control handle it."

"You mean kill it," Gale said.

"It's a sex-crazed, meat-eating sewer elephant," Asher said. "What else are they going to do?"

"We can take it in alive," Gale said. "It can appear in the Menageries, or the Arenas. What could beat a carnivore sewer elephant?" There was a long silence.

"All right," Asher said finally. "We'll need the power winch. And cable. Lots of cable..."

Within twenty minutes, Mavel and Gale had the elephant's limbs trussed up and hogtied. "HQ is sending an animal control unit with a heavy tractor," he said. "They're going to open up the whole floor to get it out. We just have to keep the elephant safe until they arrive."

Vixen held up the trunk. "I think it's coming to," she said.

"When it does," Marvel said optimistically, "it will probably snap those cables like so many spider webs."

"We can take care of that," Gale said. He drew an air pistol loaded with tiny tranquilizer darts, not much bigger than wasp stingers, and fired two into the folds of the elephant's chin.

"Do you do math up there in the mountains?" Marvel said. "The darts are meant for critters weighing five to ten pounds. This elephant weighs at least 500 pounds. To adjust for size, you need fifty darts. That's assuming the elephant's biochemistry is about-"

The elephant gave a shattering bleat. Everyone jumped back. "I told you so!" Marvel said. But the elephant only slumped on its side, twitching its trunk.

"What happened?" Gale said.

Vixen took a look at its rapidly expanding pupil. "I think you just stoned it," she said.

**I decided to take a break from posting to build up a "lead" again, and will probably slow down the pace a bit to make time for other projects. Still, I hope to do at least a couple chapters a week for the foreseeable future; I have a LOT more ideas for this.**


	27. Presidential Performance

There was a merciful intermission, unfortunately much too brief. For the interim show, the island was transformed into a stylized tropical isle, complete with full-size palm trees and a miniature volcano. Rue appeared, dressed in a monkey costume that was marginally more cute than degrading. She played for a while, swinging in the trees and dancing with a tiny elephant. Then Thresh appeared in his gorilla costume, and started to chase her. It was an undemanding role for Thresh, who only had to lumber along while she ran circles around him, occasionally letting him get close enough to justify leaping away, flipping over his head or, once, tumbling and rolling between his legs. The act concluded with him catching her, lifting her on his shoulder, and giving her a banana. "You're up," Seeder told Katniss.

"Now appearing as challenger," the announcer declared, "Venus, the Morningstar, Goddess of Love!" There was a surge in the surf, and Enobaria arose as "Venus", seemingly coalesced from the sea foam in her negligible outfit. Then a sulfrous cloud erupted from a fissure in the side of the volcano. "The defender, Proserpine-"

Queen of Hell, I get it," Katniss muttered. She emerged from the smoke in a costume ablaze with fake flame, carrying a compact scythe with a weighted chain attached. Seeder had said it was called a kusarigama, and tales told that it originated from the legendary land of Japan. "I hate this thing."

"And the second to the challenger, Bellona, Goddess of War!" the announcer said. Clove dropped from the sky, wielding a short sword and a dagger. The crowd cheered wildly, and the announcer went into a skeleton of a narrative that had clearly been prepared in advance. "Venus was held fairest of the gods. So fair was she that even War fell at her feet." As the announcer spoke, Clove gave affectionate obeisance to her mother. "But it was not enough for Venus to be loved. She wished to conquer. So, she made a rash challenge: She boasted that she could overcome the Queen of Death!"

The heavily-chromed mace dropped from the sky, straight into Venus's hands. Once again, ornamental baubles transformed into armor. Enobaria grinned with her golden fangs and then went straight for Katniss. "Shit," Katniss said. She retreated, and Venus followed. Venus swung again, at enough range for the Queen of Hell to dodge. She sighed and raised the scythe in one hand and the chain in the other. She felt the faintest hint of a vibration, and the leaden weight suddenly became light and alive in her hands. The weight at the end of the flail, shaped like a pomegranate, glowed a dull red. Venus raised the mace over her head, and Katniss jerked up her chain in turn to block the blow. The descending mace was arrested by a chain that actually drew taut against the blow and then bounced the mace back.

Katniss started to spin the chain, first sideways, then overhead, and then in a series of increasingly complex maneuvers. Anyone who knew anything about flail weapons knew that even a basically good one took exceptional skill and practice to use effectively. A capable martial artist would probably have had to practice for as many years as Katniss had been alive to replicate the tricks she performed merely by steering the whirling chain and following the subtle vibrations meant to guide her.

Venus drew back cautiously as Katniss played out more of the chain, taking particular care to hold her mace close to her chest. One of the main uses of the kusarigama's flail was to snare weapons from a foe's hands. Katniss reeled in the chain and closed in. Venus held the mace vigilantly. Katniss simply went wild, twirling the chain every whch way. She could see her foe's eyes dart about, tracking the drew in the chain tighter still and twirled faster. She closed in until the moment Venera was about to strike. Then she jerked back, making her opponent jump, and in the same move she kicked, driving her heel into Venus's knee cap. Venera howled and dropped to her other knee, and Katniss dropped her with three blows from the haft of her weapon.

The Goddess of War then gave an eerie cry and charged. She hurled her dagger, which Katniss deflected by twirling her flail. Bellona drew yet another weapon, a parrying dagger whose blade split into three. There was a subtle change in her bearing as she drew the weapon. It was the bearing of one being guided. Katniss swung her flail overhand, and Bellona inerringly snared the chain between the blades of her dagger. Instead of having the dagger jerked from her hands, the Goddess of War activated a mechanism that set the blades spinning. The snagged chain was thus wrapped up, until the kusarigama itself was jerked from Katniss' hands. What truly made the Queen of Hell let go was the sudden leaden feel of her weapon as whatever force made the weapon alive in her hands abruptly departed.

On cue, Katniss drew her sickle-sword and a shield, while Clove freed her dagger from the chain by snapping the blades together to cut the chain to pieces. After a few feints, Katniss knocked Clove's sword from her hand, only to find the whirling blades of the dagger poised inches from her face. "I yield!" the Queen of Hell said, dropping sword and shield. "Surely, Love is greater than death!" Then the audience laughed and cheered as Clove pushed Katniss to the ground and straddled her, holding her down while Enobaria sat up and kissed her. The cheers grew quickly louder, and Katniss knew it had to be more than the show. Enobaria and Clove rose, turning toward the Maidens' Box, and Katniss rose in turn, following their gaze. There was a particular part of the box, with a window of one-way glass. The window was open now, and a slight old man with white hair was applauding with the audience as they applauded louder still.

Katniss' team had just performed for President Snow.

The show wasn't quite over yet. A stage slid out from the Maiden's Box for a small drama. The Arena floor once again transformed back into the miniature city, and the fleets of airships returned, signalling a "flashback" to the days of the first conquest. "Now, we bring you a Historical Drama, The Election of Scipio!" the announcer said with gusto. "Many and great were the triumphs of the House of Scipio, but the victory on which all others depended was won not by the shot of a gun or stroke of a sword, but by a single vote. Yet, all the deeds of Scipio together would mean no less in the tapestry of Fate than the affair of a young man and a maid."

On the stage, players assembled. Enya and Glimmer assumed the positions of arm candy, but Katniss was called on for a starring role. "Even in those days, so great was the name of Scipio that when he offered himself for the Presidency, only one could be found to challenge him. His foe was not a lord but the maiden daughter of the great chief Leeg who had died in battle along with his sons. A counsel of fourteen renowned men, one from the line of each Chief, met before the Assembly in the first Great Electorate, to choose which one would lead Panem." Katniss stepped forward as the maiden, and barely kept from gasping. The man facing her as Scipio was President Snow.

"Seven times, the Electors voted, and seven times, the count of the secret ballots found seven votes for Scipio and seven for Leeg. Then it happened that the youngest of the Electors offered his vote to the maiden, if in exchange she agreed to marry him. She refused." Finnick Odair appeared for the interchange, which made Katniss even more uncomfortable than facing the President. Instead of slapping him, she raked with her nails and drew blood. He pressed a hand to his cheek, but with the corner of his mouth, he gave a hint of a smile.

"So great was the blow to the young man's heart that his love became as bitter hate. He stood before the assembly and accused the maiden of offering him her virginity as a bribe. The maid would offer no answer, and her very silence moved the Assembly, and on the eight vote the young man himself gave his vote to the maiden. But two more cast their lots for Scipio. Rather than challenge the vote or accuse the young man, she declared that she would take her father's airships and all of his house who would go with her and go to found their own land or die in the attempt. She called on the favor of Fortune and Fate to make their land vaster and stronger than all of Panem combined. She also promised that while her House lived, they would come to the aid of Panem in its hour of need. Then she departed." Once again, a part of the fleet sailed away.

"Only when the maiden was gone did her suitor confess his lie to the Assembly, and in his grief and shame, he hanged himself in the public square." Finnick strung himself up industriously, drawing cheers from the audience. "Great was the consternation of the Electors. Two lords admitted to changing their vote to Scipio, and one declared that had he known the truth, he would have held his vote, and the other professed that while he believed Scipio most deserved the office, they had done the maiden wrong. Scipio himself declared that if the vote had not been cast in his favor, he had been prepared to offer to share power with the maiden Leeg, by giving to her full power as commander of Panem's soldiers.

"Then the Electors, the Assembly and the Senate decreed with one accord that a vote of mere majority, even a majority of the most august of the elect, could never suffice to choose an Officer of State. Ever afterward, every election of Citizen to the Assembly, of Assemblyman to the Councilors, Councilor to the Senate, and Senator to Elector, was carried out by nomination of but one candidate and unanimous approval of a body of Electors, and each Electorate was numbered twelve, in memory of the departed maiden and her suitor and the twelve chiefs who followed Scipio.

"Then Scipio took command of the twelve remaining chiefs, and each built a great House of the Capitol , and from the Territories Scipio conquered, twelve Districts were made, one for each of the twelve chiefs who followed him. Then, when Scipio faced the hour of his death without an heir to sustain his House, he decreed that his treasure, and lands, and arms, and slaves should be donated to the state, and his great Mansion was to be ever after the Presidential Mansion, to be occupied only by the rightfully elected Presidents, and then only until and unless one of the departed line of Leeg should return to reclaim the maiden's place. But nothing more was heard again of the line of Leeg, until the day came when all Panem faced certain doom..." The announcer chuckled. "But, that is another story."

After the performance, the gladiatrices had to linger for a meeting with the President. "I will make this short, however sweet," he said. He kissed Enya on the cheek, and smiled at Katniss. "You young ladies are already the talk of the Capitol, and I see that you do not disappoint. I wish you the best of fortune."

He departed, and Katniss hurriedly dressed. There was a dress she was supposed to wear for a sponsor's dinner in a few hours, but she threw on her green hunting clothes. As she buttoned up, she met Enya's eyes. "You've met President Snow before," she said, "haven't you?"

Enya shrugged. "I couldn't entirely avoid it," she said. "He's my grandfather."


	28. Rattacus!

Gale, Asher, Vixen and Marvel returned to Center, to be greeted with a mix of cheers and envious looks. Several Capitolite reporters were waiting. "Is it true that you captured an escaped elephant?" a woman asked.

"I don't know," Asher said. "Is there anything else that's got gray, wrinkled skin, tusks and a trunk?"

"Were any of your party in danger?" another reporter asked.

Asher nudged Gale forward, and held back Marvel. "I was in the tunnel, recovering the sole survivor of a dog pack that had engaged an unknown exotic, when the elephant charged me," Gale said. He held up the nipper, still in his arms. "It charged me, and knocked itself out cold against a ladder. Then we tied it up, tranquilized it and waited for a pickup."

"Any words for the Capitol?"

"Yeah... Don't buy an elephant," Gale said. That got people chuckling.

"Is there anything you would like to say to anyone at home?" The Tributes were not allowed mail privileges until after their third month.

"Well, a lot of my friends are here with me," Gale said. "But for my mom, Hazelle, and my brothers and sisters..." He took Vixen's hand. "Mama, Rory, Vick, Posy... this is Vixen. We work together, we've gotten to be good friends, and yesterday... we got married." In a cottage with one of twelve working TV sets in the East Village, two miners caught Hazelle Hawthorne as she fainted. Then he added, "There's one other thing. I came here with another boy named Logan Hawthorne. No relation, far as we could figure out. We got the same assignment, but he died on his first day of work. It would be nice if I could know why."

There was a long, awkward pause. Marvel opened his mouth to speak, just when there was a shriek from the female reporter. Cameras promptly went off, as a cry went up: "Rats!"

"Rats in a sewer," Asher said dryly. "Whoda thunk it? Boys and girl... lock and load."

While the sewer lines ran all over the city, the major functions were centralized in Precinct Seven itself: administation, water purification, toxic waste storage, and research. The ragged column of rats making a beeline through HQ clearly came from an area used by the research department, which was mainly responsible for pest control. Gale's team followed the trail, and an adventurous pair of journalists followed behind. The reporter intermittently asked semi-intelligent questions. "Is it true that the rats have mutations for intelligence?"

Asher deigned to answer, "The sewer rats are their own species. They're bigger than other rats, so they of course, they have bigger brains, and size does matter. So, yeah, they're smarter than other rats."

"What about the so-called `rat-kings'?"

"They exist, of course. They're in the museums. I've seen a few alive in the wild. Again, they're smart- compared to other rats."

"But how smart are they? Do you think they might approach a human level of intelligence?"

"Don't know," Asher said. "How smart are people, really? Why ask me? I just work here."

"Can you comment on reports of the so-called `rat kings' organizing the other rats?"

"Rats are social animals," Asher said. "Their instinct is to follow a dominant rat, and a rat with a bigger brain can do the job at least as well as a rat with bigger teeth. Doesn't mean they actually- Shit!"

The best method for catching rats alive was with powerful vacuums, normally mounted on tank trucks. The research staff had set up a holding area with larger tanks to receive the rats the trucks brought back. The rats were dropped into holding tanks by the same kind of vacuum hoses that collected them, with some sorting by size. Each tank was about twenty feet high and thirty wide with nearly frictionless sides. As an extra precaution, every tank was covered by an inverted funnel six feet high, about four times the length of a large rat's body.

In one overfilled tank, the rats had managed to overcome these obstacles. Hundreds had assembled into a pyramid thirteen feet high, tall enough for the others to leap for the dangling hose and scramble for the rim of the funnel. Not all made it, but it was enough to sustain a steady stream of escapees. The nipper, went into furious barking, straining to escape Gale's arms. When the dauntless ratter finally got free, it ran the other way. "There's a king in there," Gale said, "or there was."

"No shit," said Asher. He drew his air rifle, with hands trembling, and plugged a rat as it pulled itself over the rim. It dropped with a prolonged squeal, and the rest of the rats took up a skirling cry of vengeance. Asher kept plugging away, and Gale joined in. "Don't look at me like that," Asher said to the reporters as he circled to cover the far side of the tank. "They eat their wounded! These bastards eat anything- and anybody!"

"So, they're rat bastards?" Vixen mused.

"Well, their mommies and daddies can't very well go to the rat priests to marry them," Marvel said.

Asher scrambled up a ladder and tried to push the air hose out of the way. He gave a cry and came away with a rat hanging on his sleeve. "Damn it to all hells, are they still dropping 'em in here?" He caught the rat by the scruff of its neck and held it up. "I oughta cut you and drop you in! You can act like you've got solidarity in the horde, but you all know what happens at the first whiff of blood!" Despite his talk, he unfolded a collapsible live trap and shoved the rat inside. Then he took out a flare pistol, loaded a canister and secured his gas mask.

"Cover your mouth and nose!" Gale warned the reporters. Asher leaned over the edge of the funnel and fired a gas grenade. There was a loud bang, and an opaque cloud filled the holding tank, brimming over the edges of the funnel. There were squeals of rats in distress. Asher resumed firing on the rats that reached the funnel top, while Gale looked for any signs of rats breaking away from the main group of escapees. "There!" Gale pointed to a score of rats moving in a tight group along the floor of the holding area. One of them was white.

"They're headed for the control room!" Vixen said. The three followed the rats to a stairway that led up to the overhead catwalks and a second-story foremen's chamber in the corner. The rats climbed a support beam up to the open control room window.

Somehow, the control room door had been locked from the inside. Gale took care of it with one slam of his forearm. Rats retreated with squeals, but quickly rallied. Just as he entered, the white rat surveyed the big control console, and went straight for a switch marked "AIR FLOW". Its two paws were gripping the switch when Gale pressed the muzzle of his rifle to the rat's skull. "I think you can understand this," he said. The white rat went upright and raised its paws.

All around Gale, rats hissed, and a second, younger white rat- a prince for the king- came out bristling. The king gave a series of squeaks, and the other rats actually backed away. Only then did Gale realize that the reporters were filming him from the nearest catwalk. "Back up," he said. "Let the rest go. It's what he wants." The king squeaked again, and the prince gave a defiant hiss before bounding out the window.

An hour later, Asher was staring coldly at the king in the live trap on the table. "It went for the air flow switch," he said. "You're absolutely sure of that? It went straight for the one switch that would either shut the vacuum off or actually reverse the flow and start pulling rats back out. Of course it would. Damn you all!" He stormed right out of the room.

Gale leaned in, looking intently at the rat as it gazed right back. Vixen looked at them both from where she sat with her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "This is Rattacus," she said. Gale looked at her in surprise. "The one we saw before is Socrates, and it fits because he's a philosopher. That's why he didn't bust himself out- he'd rather stay with us, and learn more about us. But this one wants to be free, so he's Rattacus. You know, after Spartacus. Haven't you heard of him?"

Gale shook his head. Marvel laughed. "Of course he hasn't," he said. "I'm surprised you have, either, Foxface. Spartacus was a gladiator, back in the old old days. They say he and a bunch of other slaves rebelled, and some people say he tried to free the rest of the slaves. Then there was another guy, not long ago at all, who called himself Spartacus. But I'm sure neither of you have heard of him. Right?"

Vixen shook her head before Gale did, and he could tell, she was lying.


	29. Tokens of Esteem

Katniss was undressing in the showers at the rear of the Maidens' Box, when Enya called out. "Hey, Kitty! We got visitors for you!" Katniss scrambled into a robe, just as Clove and Enobaria entered. Clove carried a beautiful little vase with a single orchid.

"My student wishes to congratulate you," Enobaria said. Clove extended a hand, and Katniss shook.

"You have good instincts," Clove said. Her voice was cool, but her smile seemed genuine. "I look forward to seeing where you go." She smiled wider as Katniss accepted the gift. Katniss was still staring at the rose well as the visitors walked out.

"Way to go, Catnip," Enya said with a smirk. "You landed your first token from a lady! She's probably having fun with you, but the way I hear she _might_ mean it."

There was a dress she was supposed to wear for a sponsor's dinner in a few hours, but she threw on her green hunting clothes. Katniss took Clove's gift to her Token table, and found a new Token: a white rose bush. The scent of the flowers pervaded the room, and something about it unnerved her. She started when she heard Haymitch's voice: "That's your token from President Snow. He expects you to wear his roses at feasts, and in the Arena if it fits with your outfit and the act."

Katniss turned around. "What are you doing here?" she said.

"Seeder gave me a call," Haymitch said. He began rooting through the tokens. "She said you weren't looking at your tokens, or doing anything about sending your own. You can't afford to get behind on that. If you don't acknowledge Tokens and send your own, you lose Sponsorships. If you lose your Sponsorships, you don't go home. Now, let's see what you got..."

He quickly organized the tokens. About two-thirds were flowers. "These are very important, but for now, it's enough to separate everything else," Haymitch said. "One important thing to know is, the size of a bouquet is just about the reverse of importance. It's the people who only see you as a passing fancy, or just don't have real money, who send the monster bouquets. The ones who are really ready to give you what you need prefer simple and elegant, like this." He held up the vase with Clove's orchid.

"But Clove's just another Tribute, even if she is from Two," Katniss said. "If she had money to give, she would use it to go home."

"True, but it's not quite that simple," Haymitch said. "The Tokens themselves are subsidized by Sponsors. Sometimes, a major sponsor will go further and give extra money along with a Token."

"In return for what?" Katniss said.

"You do catch on fast," Haymitch said. "There's a lot of `code' that goes into it. Like, if somebody throws a fight, the winner sends a big gift. Or, if he still wins but holds back enough that the other guy looks good and doesn't get hurt, the loser sends a small gift. Though, for once, that's being a _bit_ too cynical. In the public's eyes, the exchange of Tokens is a matter of sportsmanship, and that really is a _very_ big part of it. It sends a message, to the Capitol and the Districts. Something like, District folk don't_ have _to act like dirty, vicious animals. We can learn to be civilized like good Capitolites. We can learn to like it here. And there's no need for the Capitolites to fret about having tens of thousands of us right here in their city."

"What about lovers?" Katniss said.

Haymitch chuckled. "It's expected, but not obligatory, if you get my drift," he said. "If someone wants you, he will send you a gift, and you're expected to send an acknowledgement. It could be another gift, or a letter, or just mentioning him in an interview. If you decide to take his offer, he will keep giving as long as you do. The Capitol eats it up, though not quite as much as they used to. For a while, it got so big-name Tributes had to have at least onepublic affair, and half of them were as staged as the fights. The Capitolites learned to see through the fakes, and they kind of eased off the angle. Nowadays, they still like the game, but they don't think less of people who don't play. My advice is, if you don't want it, don't do it."

"Right," Katniss said, thinking of Seeder, "I'll keep that in mind."

He turned aside to the remainder of the Tokens. "Now, the first thing to do with these is weed out the plugs," he said. He held up a small vial of perfume, obviously intended as a sample. "Plugs are free samples of products from companies that want you to sell their products. _Sell_ is the key word. You won't be their spokesperson; that kind of thing isn't very big anymore, mostly because the Capitol put a legal limit on commercials during the Games. What you will be doing is contracting yourself out to sell their products in person. This is where lots of Tributes get burned. If you're good, and you pick a good product, it can be worth it. _You_ are better off using the time in practice."

It took some time for Haymitch to sort things out. When he was done, a sixth of the pile remained. Jewelry predominated. "Half of this stuff is what they call glass'n'brass," Haymitch said. He held up a pair of brilliant emerald earrings. "For the most part, they're not nearly as bad as that. Take these. The stones are the real thing, chemically speaking, just made in a lab. As good as the best natural ones, and they can make them better. The sets are gold, or at least gold-plated."

Katniss took a look at the card, and groaned. "Cato, Clan Alvarez... House of Augeus? Is that a Capitol title?"

"Yeah, he's from one of the District families that married into a Ruling House," Haymitch said. He continued to sort, making comments on some of the givers. "This is from Cornelius, steer clear of him... Brutus was the first pankratiast to make it big, he's a safe choice for a lunch date... General Berings-Templesmith is the Centurions' patron, he probably just wants to set you up with Cato, but you can't afford to blow him off... Duncan Carter is the biggest Patron of the Games, definitely meet with him... And what have we here?"

He held up a brooch that was nearly identical in shape to Madge's Mockingjay pin. This version, however, was twice as big, made of a gold-platinum alloy, and inlaid with diamonds. Katniss read the note: "Finnick Odair."

She looked to Haymitch, who just shrugged. "Your call," he said.

"He's the host of the dinner tonight," Katniss said. "I will talk to him then." She looked at Haymitch. "Did you see the History show? Okay, well... Do you know, what really happened?"

Haymitch shrugged. "Even the Capitolites don't really know," he said. "But their shows are pretty close to the truth, far as anybody can tell, just a bit... simpler. Like, the old books- which are still from centuries later- say it was Scipio the Third who was in the Great Election. The Capitolites think it was his great-grandfather who first came to the city, and his grand-nephew who did most of the Conquests. Then the big fudge is that the fourteen chiefs didn't arrive all at once, or even in one generation, and they came in with a whole other tribe that settled further north- again, that's going by the Capitol's own books. By the time of Scipio the Great, there were already _Capitol_ colonies all over the Territories. They're pretty sure that the Conquests were mostly just about getting the colonists to recognize the Presidency."

"Then what about the Twelve Houses?" Katniss asked. "Do the House Families really think they're descended from the twelve chiefs?"

Haymitch smiled. "Well, even the old stories don't really say that," he said. "The chiefs were the leaders of what we call would call Clans, and even then, they were as much about business and politics as they were about blood. Over time, individual families mostly came and went, and the Capitolites know that. There's only a handful of families that even claim an unbroken line. Still, there's no denying, the Capitolites and especially the Houses all go back to a pretty tight group. That's why there's so many redheads. It's a recessive gene, like Seam eyes, and it only comes when people who already have it have children together... Effie's a redhead, you know." His smile turned wistful.

"What happened with you and her?" Katniss asked.

"She was the only eligible daughter of the oldest Family of the leading Clan of the House of Aurelius in Capitol, contracted to marry the heir of Clan Alvarez," Haymitch said. "I was the Tribute they decided to sponsor. Then... we fell in love. Really. I'm pretty sure we stayed in love, too. I don't know if that's made things better or worse."

"Okay," Katniss said quietly, "but _what happened?_"

"They sent Peacekeepers," Haymitch said, and actually laughed. "They came right into the Temple of Janus. The Priest took a flesh wound trying to stop them. It was two of the Accolytes who dragged him out of the way. The Head Peacekeeper said I had a choice: Get Avoxed, all the way, or get fed to a Mutt. But Effie managed to make a deal. Her family released her from her contract, dropped all charges against me, and paid the Capitol to let me go. Their only condition was that we return everything they considered theirs."

"Like what?" Katniss wondered.

"My car... my best tokens... Effie's apartment... her jewels..." Haymitch sighed. "...And her ovaries."


End file.
